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and google finance bad news seems endless
just, wow!
Interdigital Inc Pa (IDCC) holdings reduced by Managed Account Advisors Llc
By: WARREN RAMSEY Approving Editor: STEVEN GREEN
LONG BEACH (Mffais.com) - Managed Account Advisors Llc sold -2 (-4.44 %) of their shares in Interdigital Inc Pa (IDCC), bringing their current holdings to 43 shares as shown by filings made public on 2008-08-07.
The stock is currently owned by 185 funds/institutions with a total activity score of 0.00. With 44.02 % of owning funds reported recently buying shares, 11.94 % maintaining existing share level and 44.02 % selling shares. Full details for Interdigital Inc Pa (IDCC) available at http://www.mffais.com/idcc.html
this longish interview on "The Family" is very interesting, if not downright chilling.
the worldview held by this group is amazing.
definitely worth watching and learning.
http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/11164?in=00:00&out=66:36
more Google Finance page misbehaviour
Interdigital Inc Pa (IDCC) completely dumped by Claymore Advisors Llc
By: WARREN RAMSEY Approving Editor: STEVEN GREEN
LONG BEACH (Mffais.com) - Claymore Advisors Llc completely dumped all -121 shares they owned of Interdigital Inc Pa (IDCC) as shown by filings made public on 2008-08-07.
The stock is currently owned by 185 funds/institutions with a total activity score of 0.00. With 44.02 % of owning funds reported recently buying shares, 11.94 % maintaining existing share level and 44.02 % selling shares. Full details for Interdigital Inc Pa (IDCC) available at http://www.mffais.com/idcc.html
this is hard to believe
Of course, I wrote them a note asking about the disconnect...
this was on google finance.
freaks.
AGIPNEWS6164
3/8/2008 08:41 GMT
ag-IP-news
Court Prevents InterDigital from Proceeding Against Nokia
KING OF PRUSSIA, PA - InterDigital Inc. announced in a press release that the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has issued a Summary Order reversing a decision by a lower court granting a preliminary injunction preventing InterDigital from proceeding against Nokia at the US International Trade Commission (USITC).
Among its determinations, the Court held that Nokia, through its own repeated, intentional invocation of the judicial process, had waived any right to arbitrate whether it has a license under InterDigital's 3G patents involved in the USITC investigation.
"We are pleased with the Court's decision and believe it will clear the path for InterDigital to proceed in the action involving Nokia before the US International Trade Commission," President of Patent Licensing. Lawrence Shay said.
"InterDigital intends to promptly notify the USITC of the decision, and we look forward to an evidentiary hearing with Nokia," he added.
The USITC action alleges Nokia has engaged in an unfair trade practice by making for importation into the United States, importing, and selling after importation certain 3G mobile handsets and components that infringe certain InterDigital patents.
InterDigital designs, develops and provides advanced wireless technologies and products that drive voice and data communications.
http://www.ag-ip-news.com/GetArticle.asp?Art_ID=6164〈=en
This was an unusual angle, yet...
so much we know so little about.
looks like we really need to begin paying attention to this little "lifeboat" earth.
i'm good.
at least better than I was when I had my heart attack.
triple bypass.
now trying to recover.
get back on the courts when I can, but it will be a while.
just have a lot less patience with certain posters.
apparently... as if it matters.
cute.
Trust me punk, you have no issues to debate...
and you?
you do?
all you do here is all about narcissism.
I bow to your greater experience.
my bemused thoughts regarding an application of technological abilities no longer needed or usable for their original intention apparently met with the hard wall of realities as expressed by you.
I often wonder about the people we found here when we "discovered" this "new world", who had managed to live here for tens of thousands of years.
yet in less than a half of a millennium, europeans, the civilized ones, have no spiritual touch with their land, nor care about those who do.
thanks for a warm welcome.
I recognize that there truly are limits to sustainability with a growing population, and that "adjustments" will somehow be made.
personally, I can hope for adjustments by natural causes, not political ones.
when we speak of 7 Billion people, it strains our ability to really fathom the immensity of the problems that you mention, in terms of resources, just to feed and clothe this number, in the barest necessities.
your optimism is admirable, but I don't see the effects of 75 years of marketing propaganda disappearing anytime soon.
Hello,
been following the developments and discussions on this most excellent board.
Thank you for providing the forum, Sumiso.
The thought that enters my mind, of what alternative use can the technology developed for oil drilling be used?
The sophistication and ability of the equipment may allow us to develop geothermal energy sources virtually anywhere on the planet.
though, in my heart, I feel that this would be no more than a small patch on a major break on runaway overpopulation.
As the prices for food begin to climb, millions will begin to perish of starvation.
Sortagreen:
bravo!
in all sincerity.
I have to agree with you.
it is the more realistic, if pessimistic, view of the facts on the ground.
so far, there is no mutiny in the military: I believe that lt.(or is it capt?) Erin Watada is probably the only officer in open revolt.
sure, many higher (retirement age) officers have stepped down, and voiced their criticism of the administration..
in my view, the greatest downfall of this country rests on the fact that the people were ultimately unable to hold their own government (congress AND the administration) accountable for anything.
How this plays over time, and in the rest of the world, we have already begun to see a flavor of. we have been exposed. and it ain't a pretty sight.
Mark,
do you feel that there is honest reporting about the current thinking in the highest echelons of the military?
I am of two minds on this (as usual): I believe that there is a substantial revulsion regarding the wasteful use of military manpower and material by some of the lower officer ranks, and that the upper military ranks, which have been purged of almost all original thinkers (a generalization, i know) may well reflect back the administration's desire for more conflict, especially with Iran.
There also seems to be a conflict between the traditional intelligence groups with the minions of the vice president.
the NIE "declassification", the incident with the "misplaced" and diverted nuclear warheads, seem to point to some kind of resistance to the normally tightly scripted and controlled information we are used to from news sources.
as you can imagine, I am deeply disappointed that we can have no meaningful discussions regarding foreign policy initiatives (if you dare to call our foreign policy that at all!), the presidential candidates, democrats and republicans, are not asked any meaty questions that have a bearing on our actual issues...
but what should we expect from our military anyway?
if the citizens of this country are ignored (remember when, all over the world, hundreds of thousands of people stood up against the iraq incursion?), why should it be up to the military to respond, as in a third world banana republic?
sorry for the rant.
thanks. I might take you up on that if I could formulate some questions.
I have worked with a teacher for about six years, though I have taken off the last two years, and found out why I am such a poor student.
I have a certain difficulty with self discipline...
hey, Mark.
you are in fine form.
good to see you up and at 'em.
you know, it appears to me that lx has undergone some sort of personality change. before the obsession with RP, he seemed to be an engaging, diverse, interesting guy (a little self absorbed, but it did not seem particularly scary).
since RP, his spelling is out of control, he is exasperated and extremely impatient with others...
I don't know what to think. I don't think that I've ever experienced such a big turnaround in someone before, though this is truly different in that my observations are all about an online personality: for all I know, it may actually be two different people.
keep the faith.
hey to Sortagreen and Stephanie.
Fuagf and Sioux Pal, and anyone else here (chunga and rooster) etc.
always late to the party, but I try to keep up.
yep.
but the questions, or statements, were not easy to take lightly.
always wanted a more nuanced question or answer.
hey, just wanted to splain myself...
a pleasure reading about your search.
from a poor practitioner of tai chi, qi gong.
hey, everyone is having such fun with the political compass.
economic left/right: -7.75
social Libertarian/authoritarian: -5.28
I would have guessed the other way around, but the questions are tough.
good conversation here, as always.
sorry that I get here late.
my best to you all!
we know where he stands.
to my mind, our society cannot function as he would have it.
the inequities are far too great.
you are so right: this bears repeating.
Sometimes, politics makes for strange bedfellows...
we all share a common goal: that is to awaken the electorate from sleep.
beyond that, I would certainly have no use for Ron Paul, and, if I am not mistaken, neither would the electorate.
This is not to say that all of Ron's positions are meritless:
there is much to be said for upholding the Constitution. He is a dead meat constitutionalist, an archive constitutionalist, a museumist constitutionalist.
He has no use for a living constitution, no faith in the ability of americans to own and operate something as impressive as that.
He would place it under glass: we have seen this sort of behaviour in the actions of the early church, and the setting of church dogma. we have seen this sort of unwillingness to experiment, and try new things. no trust in the people he would represent...
we have been subjected to an incredible regime. Incredible because of the trifling of the Bill of Rights.
Yet, it is a well known fact that the tree of Liberty must be watered with the blood of martyrs from time to time.
We are not to the point where we will be inconvenienced by losing our rights. Any student of history will tell you that the comparison to the rise of the third reich was accomplished in a very similar manner.
Ron Paul is a symbol.
in any case, the left and the right now have a common enemy.
It is difficult to imagine the kind of work that will be necessary to recover from the past eight years.
and that is making a pretty wild assumption that the leaders chosen will somehow now be allowed to "win".
the article is correct.
it would be very hard for me to see Ron Paul become the president.
but he is an honest man.
but his friends are not.
you nailed it.
however, between fending for their families and the numerous distractions available on the Teevee,they don't seem to have the time or the inclination to become involved.
in my other life, trying to get these people to become active, even in their own self interest, is no easy matter.
but on the Ron Paul thing. people whose views i had come to respect and admire in a way, give me much pause.
the libertarian is just a wannabe republican who has no compassion. at least republicans love the rich...
easy to be proud of your own achievements when you are blessed with good health, and most likely, some good luck.
but i can never avoid looking into the abyss, where the suffering souls dwell.
Ron Paul
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/6/5/193414/2787
worth the read and follow up.
I think we are desperate for a saviour.
not gonna happen.
if you haven't seen this yet.
read the original with links here: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/6/5/193414/2787
Ron Paul Hates You Hotlist
by phenry [Subscribe]
Tue Jun 05, 2007 at 04:34:14 PM PDT
Daily Kos is very definitely not the place you'd expect to see a lot of fulminating praise for right-wing conservatives. Yet the diaries are full of people who can't find enough nice things to say about Rep. Ron Paul, whose smiling face is at this moment being beamed to America from the site of the Republican debate in New Hampshire--after which, we may be sure, we will see yet another round of diaries brimming with joy about Paul's sweet words against the Iraq war. You, dear reader, may even be considering writing one or more such diaries yourself.
Before you do, fellow Democrat, please understand just one thing: Your affection for Paul is far from mutual. Through his words, his actions, and his votes in Congress, he has made one thing abundantly clear over the decades: Ron Paul hates you. By building him up, by supporting him, by taking him seriously, you are not driving a wedge into the heart of the Republican Party--you are only giving him a helping hand along the road to his goal of destroying just about everything you stand for.
* phenry's diary :: ::
*
THE RON PAUL EXPERIENCE - A Diary Series
1. Ron Paul, In His Own Words
2. Ron Paul: The Radical Right's Man in Washington
3. Ron Paul: Dude is Wack
4. Ron Paul Hates You
Let's have a look at some of the many, many issues on which Ron Paul places himself squarely in opposition to me and, presumably, you:
Abortion: Ron Paul's "libertarianism" famously does not extend to the right of a woman to control her body. In February he introduced H.R. 1094, "[t]o provide that human life shall be deemed to exist from conception." He voted against overriding Bush's veto of the stem cell bill.
The Environment: Ron Paul may be a Republican, but he's certainly not a Republican for Environmental Protection. That fine organization gave Paul a shameful 17 percent rating on its most recent Congressional Scorecard (warning: PDF). He doesn't fare much better in the eyes of the American Wilderness Coalition or the League of Conservation Voters. Paul's abysmal record on the environment is driven in large measure by his love of sweet, sweet oil: in the 109th Congress alone, he voted to voted allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, to shield oil companies from MTBE contamination lawsuits, against increasing gas mileage standards, to allow new offshore drilling, and to stop making oil companies pay royalties to the government for drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. Par for the course for a man who called the Kyoto accords "bad science, bad economics and bad domestic policy" and "anti-Americanism masquerading as environmentalism."
Immigration: Paul marches in lock-step with the xenophobic right wing on immigration, calling last month's compromise immigration bill "a compromise of our laws, a compromise of our sovereignty, and a compromise of the Second Amendment." Yet even the hardcore nativists in the immigration debate have been hesitant to support repealing birthright citizenship as enshrined in the Fourteenth Amendment, as Paul has done. His proposed Constitutional amendment, introduced as H. J. Res 46 on April 28, 2005, reads: "Any person born after the date of the ratification of this article to a mother and father, neither of whom is a citizen of the United States nor a person who owes permanent allegiance to the United States, shall not be a citizen of the United States or of any State solely by reason of birth in the United States." Only four other Representatives, all Republicans, were willing to cosponsor this proposed amendment.
Civil Rights: Paul doesn't much care for ensuring your right to vote. Like when he voted with just 32 other members of Congress against reauthorizing the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Or when he voted for the bogus "Federal Election Integrity Act" voter suppression bill.
But at least Ron Paul knows who's responsible for racism in America: you are. "By encouraging Americans to adopt a group mentality," he writes, "the advocates of so-called 'diversity' actually perpetuate racism. Their intense focus on race is inherently racist, because it views individuals only as members of racial groups." So now you know. (Apparently, saying that f you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be" is not racist, as long as it's said with a proper appreciation for free-market economics.)
Gay Rights: Paul's rigid, uncompromising libertarianism leads him to take a number of positions that liberals find objectionable or even reprehensible but which should not in themselves be taken as ipso facto evidence of bigotry. His reflexive opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, for example, is consistent with libertarian positions on federalism and the right of the individual to be free from government "coercion," even if that means limiting the ability of minorities to seek employment and housing free from discrimination.
Still, libertarian orthodoxy can't fully explain Paul's hostility to gay rights, and indeed to gay people in general. The Libertarian Party, which nominated Paul as its presidential candidate in 1988, has strongly opposed the so-called Defense of Marriage Act from the beginning; Paul supports it. While he opposed the "Federal Marriage Amendment" that would have outlawed gay marriage everywhere, he actually cosponsored the odious "Marriage Protection Act," which would nonsensically bar federal courts from considering challenges to the Defense of Marriage Act, which is a federal law. "The definition of marriage--a union between a man and a woman--can be found in any dictionary," he writes condescendingly. Despite Paul's disingenuous claims that he is a "strict constitutionalist," most legal scholars agree that the so-called Marriage Protection Act would be unconstitutional.
You also will not find Paul listed among the 124 co-sponsors of the Military Readiness Enhancement Act of 2007, which would repeal the "don't ask, don't tell" policy barring gays and lesbians from serving in the military. Maybe he's worried that they'll take their "gay agenda" to far-flung corners of the world. He also doesn't want gay people adopting children while they're not serving in the military, either.
On a personal level, we have this 1993 quote wherein Paul equates homosexuality with "sexual deviance." And let's not forget his wink-wink characterization of Hillary Clinton as "a far leftist with very close female friends".
Church-State Separation: From keeping "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance to co-sponsoring the school prayer amendment to keeping the Ten Commandments on a courthouse lawn, this "strict constitutionalist" isn't a big fan of the Constitutionally-mandated separation of church and state. "Religious morality will always inform the voting choices of Americans of all faiths," he writes. "...The collectivist left" --that's you!-- "is threatened by strong religious institutions, because it wants an ever-growing federal government to serve as the unchallenged authority in our society.... So the real motivation behind the insistence on a separation of church and state is not based on respect for the First amendment, but rather on a desire to diminish the influence of religious conservatives at the ballot box."
And just in case the dirty liberals in the federal court system might take it into their heads to enforce the Establishment Clause, Mr. Strict Constitutionalist introduced a bill to bar the federal courts from hearing any such cases. No wonder James Dobson's Family Research Council gave Paul a 75 percent rating on their 2005 scorecard.
International Relations: Like crackpot paleoconservatives everywhere, Paul wants us out of the United Nations, which is just a bunch of un-American non-Americans out to destroy America. Darfur is also filled with non-Americans, so you certainly won't find Ron Paul lifting a finger to stop the genocide, or even acknowledge that genocide is taking place. I guess that's why he's one of only four members of Congress to receive an "F" rating on Darfur from the Genocide Intervention Network.
Peace and Military Issues: With all the hooting and hollering about Paul's opposition to the Iraq war, it sure seems like he should have been able to get better than 58 percent from PeacePAC, doesn't it? Even Joe Lieberman managed to get 63 percent. (Still, it beats the 45 percent Paul got from them in the previous Congress.) He did a little better from Peace Action, managing 67 percent--easily the top score for a Republican, but a below-average score for Democrats. (Still, it beats the 40 percent he got from them in 2004.)
And while Paul may oppose the Iraq war, he doesn't seem to have much use for the men and women who have to fight it. Paul received an "F" rating from the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. It's not easy to get an F from the IAVA; Paul shares this distinction with only six other members of the House.
Taxes: Do we even need to go into this one? If you audaciously believe that we need a progressive system of taxation in this country, here's what Ron Paul thinks of you:
* "[W]e have exactly the kind of steeply progressive tax system championed by Karl Marx. One might expect the left to be happy with such an arrangement. At its core, however, the collectivist left in this country simply doesn’t believe in tax cuts. Deep down, they believe all wealth belongs to the state, which should redistribute it via tax and welfare policies to achieve some mythical 'social justice.'... The class war tactic highlights what the left does best: divide Americans into groups. Collectivists see all issues of wealth and taxation as a zero-sum game played between competing groups. If one group gets a tax break, other groups must be rallied against it- even if such a cut would ultimately benefit them.... Upward mobility is possible only in a free-market capitalist system, whereas collectivism dooms the poor to remain exactly where they are."
* "Collectivist politicians forget that the American dream of becoming wealthy is alive and well. They seek to encourage resentment of the wealthy, when in truth most Americans admire successful people. They forget that upward mobility, the chance to start from humble beginnings and achieve wealth and position, is virtually impossible in high-tax socialist societies. Most of all, however, the pro-tax politicians forget that your money belongs to you. As a society, we should not forget their dishonesty when we go to the polls."
Screw this; this diary's way too long already. Worker rights: Voted to defund OSHA's ergonomics rules. Voted against increasing mine safety standards. Hates unions. Campaign finance reform: Opposes. Social Security and Medicare: Repeats the Republicans' lies about the programs' solvency. Consumer protection: Voted for the bankruptcy bill. Voted to make it harder to file class-action lawsuits. Universal health care: don't make me laugh. Privatizing everything: the Internets are not large enough to hold all the citations.
"But he's against the war!" Yes, he is. So is Pat Buchanan. So is David Duke. If either of them were on the stage in New Hampshire today, full of sweet words about the war, would you be as quick to praise their "independence," to gush about how well of course I wouldn't vote for him myself but he sure is awesome anyway? Do you truly require nothing from a political candidate other than that he oppose the war?
Think about it.
Tags: Ron Paul, 2008 Elections, Recommended (all tags)
razorbucks,is everything a battle for you?
do you know how to carry on a civilized conversation?
and all of these do not include any "black ops" budgets, which no one gets to look at. and I understand that they are huge.
Each year the US Department of Defense (DoD) lists a number of single line items in its budget that have a program number such as 0605236F, code names like CLASSIC WIZARD or vague description such as “special evaluation program,” that don’t refer to any weapons system known to the general public, Congressional officials or even defense analysts. These single line items are covers for the creation of a ‘black budget’ - a top secret slush fund set up by the DoD, with the approval of the US Congress, to apparently fund intelligence organizations such as the CIA as well as covert operations and classified weapons programs by the DoD. The ‘black budget’ allows intelligence activities, covert operations and classified weapons research to be conducted without Congressional oversight on the grounds that oversight would compromise the secrecy essential for the success of such ‘black programs’.
kids, we wuz robbed!
speaking for myself, you are welcome here.
your exposition is exactly as I has learned to see you from your other posts in th "patch".
I enjoy your use of the idiom.
though I am hardly ever near realtime when it comes to processing posts, I do like what you have to sat.
carry on.
thanks for the reply
regardless, i will miss the perspective that sortagreen brought to the "dialogue".
he was not willing to let the discussions be hijacked by brain damaged zomboids and garbage eaters.
I have very little tolerance (far less than you do) for the repetitious regurgitation of fascistic talking points, and refusal to engage in discussion.
what human excrement!
Sorry for Zeev, but sorrier for Sorta.
just my opinion.
hey, fuagf (however you pronounce that)
I was just really upset that Sortagreen, with whose perspective I seem to agree with a lot, gets the bum's rush when coprophages of every description crawl all over that site.
Zeev must be "tetchy".
really sorry to see him go from there.
It is absolutely mind boggling to me, a casual observer and lurker on this board, that that you have "run out of patience" with sortagreen.
all manner of vile provocation, answerd by him in an honest and cleat, though not polite, manner, earns him a permanent ban?
score one big one for the irrational hatemongers.
60 years of faulty logic
By James Carroll | March 12, 2007
SIXTY YEARS AGO today, Harry Truman went before a joint session of Congress to announce what became known as the Truman Doctrine. "At the present moment in world history, nearly every nation must choose between alternative ways of life." With that, an era of bipolarity was inaugurated, dividing the world between forces of good and evil.
The speech amounted, as one of Truman's advisers characterized it, to a declaration of religious war. In the transcendent struggle between Moscow and Washington, "nonalignment" was not an option. Truman declared that the United States would actively support "free" people anywhere who were resisting either internal or external threats to that freedom. The "free world" was born, but so, eventually, were disastrous wars in Korea and Vietnam.
The occasion of Truman's pronouncement was his decision to militarily support one side in the civil war in Greece, and with that, the deadly precedent of American intervention in foreign civil wars was set. Fear of communism became a driving force of politics and a justification for vast military expenditures.
Nine days after announcing the Truman Doctrine, the president issued an executive order mandating loyalty oaths and security checks for federal employees, the start of the domestic red scare. The "paranoid style" of American life, in Richard Hofstadter's phrase, was set.
That style lives. Democrats are lining up to attack the Bush administration's catastrophe in Iraq -- not because that war was wrong to start with, but because it has turned out so badly. The administration, meanwhile, has repudiated its go-it-alone militarism in favor of nascent diplomatic initiatives with North Korea, Syria, and Iran -- not because the virtues of diplomacy are suddenly so evident, but because everything else it tried led to disaster. Bush's failures are prompting important shifts, both by his critics and advisers. But no one is asking basic questions about the assumptions on which US policies have been based for 60 years.
More than adjustments in tactics and strategy are needed. What must be criticized, and even dismantled, is nothing less than the national security state that Truman inaugurated on this date in 1947. The habits of mind that defined American attitudes during the Cold War still provide consoling and profitable structures of meaning, even as dread of communism has been replaced by fear of terrorism. Thus, Truman's "every nation must choose " became Bush's "You are with us or against us." America's political paranoia still projects its worst fears onto the enemy, paradoxically strengthening its most paranoid elements. The monstrous dynamic feeds itself.
The United States has obviously, and accidentally, been reinforcing the most belligerent elements in Iran and North Korea, but it is also doing so in Russia and China. Last week, for example, alarms went off in Washington with the news that China is increasing its military spending by nearly 18 percent this year, bringing its officially acknowledged military budget to $45 billion. Yet who was raising questions about massive American military sales (including missiles) to Taiwan, whose defense build up stimulates Beijing's? Speaking of budgets, who questions the recently unveiled Pentagon total for 2008 of more than $620 billion? (Under Bill Clinton, the defense budget went from $260 billion to about $300 billion.) Even allowing for Iraq and Afghanistan, how can such an astronomical figure be justified?
When the United States announces plans to station elements of its missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic, why are Russian complaints dismissed as evidence of Vladimir Putin's megalomania? On this date in 1999, Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic were admitted to NATO, in violation of American assurances to Moscow that NATO would not move east from the unified Germany. Now NATO looks further east still, toward Georgia and Ukraine. And Putin is the paranoid?
Last week, the Bush administration announced plans for the first new nuclear weapon in more than 20 years, a program of ultimately replacing all American warheads. So much for the nuclear elimination toward which the United States is legally bound to work by the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. Washington simultaneously assured Russia and China that this renewal of the nuclear arsenal was no cause for them to feel threatened. Hello? Russia and China have no choice but to follow the US lead, inevitably gearing up another arms race. It is 1947 all over again. A precious opportunity to turn the world away from nuclear weapons, and away from war, is once more being squandered -- by America. And what candidate running for president makes anything of this?
James Carroll's column appears regularly in the Globe.
© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.
http://tinyurl.com/2g657k
Hear! Hear!
while the whole system needs at least a good scrubbing, Al Gore also seems to me the most thoughtful and, yes, humble, potential candidate for the presidency.
I think we can be sure that he won't ask the Lieberman to be his running mate if he does decide to run...
TP,
things that are on my mind:
was true then, is more true now
SINOROVING
PART 4: The peasant Tiananmen time bomb
By Pepe Escobar
PART 1: The Great Wall of shopping
PART 2: Selling China to the world
PART 3: The hottest label: China chic
"There is chaos under heaven and things could not be better." - Mao Zedong
"The biggest danger to the Party since taking over has been losing touch with the masses." - Hu Jintao
SHANGHAI - Everywhere in developed, urban China - Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou - the message was the same. The next "counterrevolutionary rebellion" - as the Communist Party defined the student uprising in Tiananmen Square in 1989 - if it happens, will be a peasant revolution. Foreign diplomats and Chinese scholars in Beijing or young, urban, 'Net-connected professionals in Guangzhou have told Asia Times Online in unmistakable terms: nobody from the party's "fourth generation" leadership wants to go back to the Maoist model of economic autarky and foreign-policy isolation.
Most of all, however, nobody in the leadership - as well as most influential intellectuals - wants the toppling of the Communist Party by pluralist forces advocating a multi-party democracy: that would amount to, in the words of a Beijing scholar, "an unpredictable, very dangerous destabilization". There's only a slight detail: what 1 billion Chinese peasants will make of all this. Enter Chen Guidi and Wu Chuntao.
Everywhere in developed, urban China another message was the same. "There's no chance you can go to Hefei [in east-central China's Anhui province] unnoticed to talk to Chen Guidi. He is strictly prohibited by the Public Security Bureau [PSB] from speaking to the foreign press. And if a Chinese national does it [an interview] for you, his life will be in danger." Husband and wife Chen Guidi and Wu Chuntao are a very dangerous couple. All because of a book, the notorious Zhongguo Nongmin Diaocha or The Chinese Peasant Study, published in January 2004, banned just before the opening of a new session of the National People's Congress (NPC) last March by the Communist Party Propaganda Department. It turned into an explosive, underground mega-bestseller - more than 7 million pirated copies have been sold. The 460-page yellow-bound volume with the title in black characters can be easily found under the counter, even in some bookshops, for 22 yuan (US$2.65).
The time bomb
Last October, The Chinese Peasant Study won the prestigious Lettre Ulysses Award, sponsored by the German magazine Lettre. The gritty, emotion-packed literary reportage depicts economic exploitation, social injustice and political oppression in rural China - as well as some extraordinary tales of resistance. It took three years to write and consumed all of Chen's and Wu's savings. They visited more than 50 towns throughout agricultural Anhui province, talked to scores of senior officials in Beijing and interviewed thousands of peasants to explain how, in its mad urbanization drive, the party not only neglected the lot of 900 million peasants - deprived of decent health care, welfare, education, the right to have more than one or two children - but also treated them harshly, plunging them in a guaiqian (vicious cycle) in which nothing has fundamentally changed a social structure that has been systematically exploiting Chinese peasants for centuries.
A constant pattern emerges: if a villager, for instance, accuses a local party boss of corruption, he inevitably goes to jail, accused of "provoking riots". The key issue in the book - and in China's modernization as well - is corruption. A whole chapter details how local, rural party officials twist their numbers to cheat the party leadership in Beijing out of revenue.
Both Chen, born in 1943 in Anhui province, and Wu, born in 1963 in Hunan province, come from peasant families and spent their childhoods in the countryside before moving to urban China. When they returned to their roots, as they write in the preface, "we observed unimaginable poverty and unthinkable evil, we saw unimaginable suffering and unthinkable helplessness, unimagined resistance with incomprehensible silence, and have been moved beyond imagination by unbelievable tragedy ..."
A typical passage reads: "Farmers worked all year long to earn an average annual income of 700 yuan. Many farmers lived in mud-clay houses that were dark, damp, small and shabby. Some even had tree bark roofs because they couldn't afford tiles. Because of poverty, once someone fell ill, he either endured it if it was minor disease, or else just waited to die. There were 620 households in the whole village, of whom 514, or 82.9%, were below the poverty line. Even though the village was very poor, the leaders were prone to boasting and exaggeration about their performance, and as a result the government struck it off the list of impoverished villages. So the villagers were burdened with exorbitant taxes and levies."
Chen is no maverick: he is a member of the respected, state-sanctioned Association of Chinese Writers. Chen and Wu definitely are not "splittists" - the unforgivable ideological sin. They are in essence moderate reformists who believe the party is reformable: one of the chapters in the book is a glowing tribute to the fairness of Premier Wen Jiabao, who was just a simple official at one time. Nevertheless, the book had the capacity to scare the fourth-generation leadership because it graphically depicts the workings of a time bomb - the other side of the market-Leninist glitter in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. It details how the rural masses have gotten next to nothing since Deng Xiaoping's reforms were introduced in the late 1970s. The average annual income in Shanghai, 14,800 yuan ($1,790), is seven times as high as in rural Anhui, 2,100 yuan. In a nutshell, the annual income of a farmer in today's China is only one-sixth to one-seventh that of an urban professional - but he pays three times as many taxes, plus a plethora of local taxes of dubious legality. Moreover, untold millions subsist on less than 2 yuan (24 cents) a day.
One system, two countries
In practice, China's real "one country, two systems" is represented by the decrepit Maoist huji zhidu or household registration system, which ties peasants to their land and was a key instrument to enforce the collectivization of agriculture. The fourth generation is more than aware of the anachronism. Long ago, Luo Gan, the Politburo Standing Committee member in charge of the police and the legal system, proposed a single, nationwide registration system for all Chinese. The State Council approved it, but implementation has been very slow. According to the new system, peasants may migrate to the cities as long as they have been able to find a job. Many have not found jobs, but they still migrate in hopes of finding work.
Inequality in China is much more acute than in India. A recent study by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CAAS) says it is actually the worst on the planet, barring the odd sub-Saharan African country. China's "peasant question" is an economic, social and political crisis of gargantuan proportions. Scholars at CAAS estimate that since the start of Deng's reforms, 270 million Chinese have escaped poverty. That's not enough in a nation of 1.3 billion people. The crucial question is how "one system, two countries", where 400 million people advance while 900 million are left behind, can possibly co-exist. One billion peasants - 80% of the total population - can never be fully assimilated, no matter the rhythm of the economic miracle.
The impact of Chen's and Wu's book, anyway, has been tremendous. In March, during the National People's Congress, the fourth generation actually managed to criticize the third generation's obsession with China's GDP (gross domestic product) growth rate, and is now formally engaged in a new development strategy more respectful of the Chinese people and the Chinese environment. Premier Wen, reformist ally of president and party chief Hu Jintao, coined the indispensable slogan of "The Three Peasant Problems": farmers, villages and agriculture. But the key issue remains corruption - and this strictly concerns Communist Party officials. It's a tremendous contradiction. The party vows to try to solve the "peasant question", but at the same time simply cannot tolerate that 900 million peasants are a de facto underclass, or the idea that the party itself may be responsible for this situation.
The Chen-Wu saga, of course, continued. Former Linquan county party secretary Zhang Xide filed a libel suit against them, seeking the equivalent of $24,000 in damages, in his home court, Fuyang county, where his own son is a judge. Chen's and Wu's lawyers tried to move the trial to a neutral location. The request was denied. Chen and Wu made clear to all that they were in fact being prosecuted by Anhui province: in other words, an arm of the Communist Party.
In an interview last year to Radio Free Asia, Chen emphasized that as Chinese peasants are 40% of all the peasants in the world, this is not only a Chinese but a world problem. The couple have accumulated enough material for three more books on "the peasant question" and are already writing a new book about their legal battle, Fighting for Peasants in Court.
Last month Chen's Beijing-based lawyer, Pu Zhiqiang, was forced to send an official letter to the Fuyang City Intermediate People's Court stating that the court had exceeded the time limit of six months for a decision in the libel case. Pu also significantly commented on what everybody knows already - the Chinese media's thunderous silence about the whole thing. Freedom of the press and the prohibition of libel against individuals are part of the Chinese constitution. But the concept of accusing a party official for the sake of the public interest simply escapes the mindset of the official Chinese system, according to Chinese journalists in Shanghai and Guangzhou - and it certainly will not be part of a new Media Law currently being drafted. As Pu Ziqiang told the Yazhou Zhoukan newspaper last September, "This case can really be treated as the trial of the century, because it is forcing the legal system to come up with a definitive statement: [Do] the news media have the right to criticize the misdeeds of government organizations and officials?"
Successful urban professionals in both Shanghai and Guangzhou are unanimous: the libel case against Chen and Wu demonstrates how the law, for the party, is an instrument of control, and how, for Chinese society, it should function as a check on the power of party officials, and as a way to protect individual rights. Premier Wen, according to diplomats in Beijing, is a passionate proponent of a Singapore-style neo-authoritarian system for China. There's one enormous difference, though: Singapore may have been a one-party state since Lee Kwan Yew's early days in the 1960s, but government corruption is in essence non-existent.
It all comes back to the same point: is the Chinese ultra-authoritarian system reformable? Dialectical contradictions abound. According to a Beijing scholar, the party recognizes that courts should be impartial and trusted by all in a country facing what some believe to be an imminent social volcano. Courts should have a major role in fighting corruption and improving governance. At the same time the party leadership fears that the primacy of the law will spell a clear and present danger to its power monopoly.
Another new slogan dictates that the fourth generation is marching toward the "Comprehensive Well-Off Society", which establishes that China's GDP levels in 2020 should be four times as high as in 2000. The question on anyone's lips is how this development drive will match the lingering communist ideal of a society that by definition has to eliminate poverty, protect the environment, eschew wars and create opportunities for all its citizens.
The armies of the night
In urban China, the ultimate threat, the menace, the dangerous Other, the Alien, is not a foreign terrorist: it's the mingong, the Chinese migrant peasant worker.
More than 200 million mingong are roaming China. At least 25% don't get paid by their employers, or their lump payment - before the Chinese Lunar New Year - is delayed. According to Zeng Peiyan, a member of China's State Council, the equivalent of more than $13 billion has not yet been paid to mingong; in some cases debts are more than 10 years old. Sixty percent of mingong have to work more than 10 hours a day. And 97% have no medical benefits whatsoever. Shanghai urban professionals insist that technically, at least for now, no Chinese peasant can dream of having formal employment.
You can spot a mingong from miles away. Their work clothes, blue or brown, are shabby and covered in dust; they are thinner than most Chinese; and they are also shorter, which leads to widespread discrimination because of their height. Whatever their perceived shortcomings, they are the unknown, heroic protagonists of China's spectacular economic miracle. In the big cities there are now more floating mingong than urban workers.
Their armies can be seen in countless construction sites in Shanghai and Beijing, living in shelters more crowded than prison cells, the more skilled among them earning 70 yuan a day for a 12-hour workday, with a 30-minute break, the new arrivals making only 30 yuan a day. They must register with the big city government every two months and have practically no health and education rights. There are more than 3 million in Shanghai alone, erecting at least one office tower a week. If all unregistered mingong are taken into account, Shanghai's population may be exceeding 20 million by now. In this Beijing winter, late at night, they can be seen working in the streets under freezing temperatures and merciless winds from the Gobi Desert. Sometimes during a lightning-quick break one can spot their shadows gazing longingly at out-of-reach sneakers and mobile phones behind glittering department-store windows.
And there are the girls too, in Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Dongguan, the hordes of manual workers all over the assembly lines in the "factory of the world", Guangdong province, churning out the world's T-shirts, trousers and sneakers; and there are the semi-illiterate girls from desert Gansu province suddenly turned into tour guides in neighboring Tibet.
Soon the army of mingong will be coming back to their provinces for the Chinese Lunar Year of the Rooster - their one and only holiday - crowding train stations with their notorious striped, oversized red-white-and-blue nylon bags crammed with gifts for their families and precious dirty envelopes stuffed with all their savings (as much as 90% of everything they earn). This annual internal Chinese migration is far bigger than the hajj.
The party loses its grip
The countryside is getting angrier by the day. In 2003 - the latest data available - there were no fewer than 58,000 "civic disturbances" involving more than 3 million people. A mob of 10,000 torch police cars in Chongqing, 100,000 demonstrators force the postponement of a dam project in Sichuan, 20,000 miners and their families riot against layoffs and loss of pensions at a bankrupt mine in the depressed northeast. Thunderous silence is the official media's norm. It's taken for granted that every city except ultra-policed Beijing has been facing demonstrations or eruptions of spontaneous violence.
Media professionals in Shanghai note the glaring absence of a powerful organization like the Brazilian Landless Peasant Movement to rally people nationwide. An intellectual from Henan province is convinced of the absolute necessity of a nationwide rebellion. But in conversations with urban professionals in Guangzhou, the absolute majority admits nothing will happen "because of China's centuries-old feudal system of exploitation".
Anyway, class struggle is alive and thriving in the Chinese countryside, pitting rich farmers against the growing army of landless mingong - they may be errant, but always keep close ties to their native villages. Surplus manpower in the countryside may reach a staggering 450 million people, according to the most alarmist predictions, with at least 26 million annually trying their luck in the big cities.
A total of 100 million peasants currently work in the so-called "town and village enterprises". TVEs grew very fast in the early years of Deng's reforms, but lately have succumbed to better-equipped urban-based or foreign-based companies. They have already absorbed all the surplus manpower they could handle.
As a Guangzhou businessman explains it, the army of unemployed has been growing because of two linked factors - China's entry in the World Trade Organization (WTO), coupled with massive layoffs by state-owned enterprises (SOEs): "There are many cities that are forcing peasants back to the countryside, because unemployment is now affecting their own residents." And when and if these millions of peasants go back, they find nothing to rely on, and the same, unchanged pitiful standards of health and education. Chinese economists say the process has been inevitable since collective production has been eroded in order to benefit individual family farming.
A peasant Tiananmen?
The ultimate, lethal danger for the Chinese Communist Party is the merging of peasant protests with urban demonstrations - peasants, mingong, former state employees - all losers united. Thus many of President Hu's recent actions, affirming his iron hand.
The party's new strategy to counter all these problems, say Chinese Academy of Social Sciences scholars, is to emphasize domestic consumer demand. This is a remarkable turnaround. Former premier Zhu Rongji and the conservatives based their economic policies on growth fueled by large SOEs. As for the export-led growth model, it was articulated by none other than the late Zhao Ziyang in the late 1980s. Now Premier Wen is in charge of the economy, and he wants a "third way". He wants growth fueled by domestic - not foreign demand. And he wants domestic demand to come from Chinese consumers, not the state.
Intellectuals, speaking anonymously because no one wants to be awakened for forced sightseeing courtesy of the Public Security Bureau, seem to agree that trying to redistribute a little bit of the pie is the only viable strategy if the party is to regain some popular appeal. Moreover, President Hu, Premier Wen and Luo Gan (Politburo member in charge of the police and the legal system) deeply believe they will be able to "rectify the behavior" of the party's bad apples in order to ensure that the new policies are followed to the letter.
These intellectuals also insist the party will refuse to reassess Tiananmen at all costs - and at its peril, one might add, because all pre-Tiananmen conditions have again resurfaced: the possibility of massive popular reaction against corruption inside the party, against abuse of power by party officials, and against the unbearable urban-rural abyss. The party will do anything to prevent the emergence of an organized and well-focused opposition. It certainly controls a vast intimidating machinery to do so. But for how long?
Gagging China's intellectuals
(Dec 15, '04)
China faces growing unrest (Nov 16, '04)
Wealth gap: major unrest unlikely
(Jul 21, '04)
The jobless victims of China's success
(Apr 1, '04)
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/GA22Ad01.h
Hi.
this may be more than I bargained for.
i'll try to keep it on the up and up.
keep up the good work.
here's an interesting "news" release:
(imagine the "clamor" for this from "consumers")
Press Release
Source: Unisys
U.S. and U.K. Consumers Push for Biometric Technology in Wake of Rising Security Threats
Monday February 5, 9:30 am ET
Mistrust of Business and Government Security Measures Spurs Broader Adoption
BLUE BELL, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Consumer mistrust of the current processes that government and business use to protect the security of personal information, as well as misgivings about security at major border crossings, has reached new highs, according to data released by the Unisys Trusted Enterprise Index. In response to rising fears, consumers now overwhelmingly favor the use of biometric technology to identify individuals through physical characteristics such as fingerprints, facial patterns and hand measurements, and believe this will have the greatest impact to strengthen data and border security.
"We've seen a consistent outcry among consumers for more effective technologies, like biometrics, that will better equip businesses and government organizations to protect and verify personal information in a way that's reliable and convenient," said Mark Cohn, vice president for integrated security programs at Unisys. "Consumers are concerned that current security processes at our nation's airports and borders are inadequate, which likely will result in even more widespread adoption of biometrics within these areas."
Across the board, a large majority of consumers in the United States (63 percent) and United Kingdom (87 percent) believe that the rise in identity fraud and the insufficient protection of personal information will become a significant security threat in the future, and feel that financial institutions and government are not doing enough to stop it. As a result, an even greater percent of U.S. consumers (69 percent) and U.K. consumers (92 percent) would prefer that banks, credit card companies, healthcare providers and government organizations adopt biometric technologies, as compared to other protection measures such as smart card readers, security tokens or passwords/PINs, to safely and quickly verify personal identities.
These findings are consistent with a previous 2006 Unisys worldwide survey on consumer security preferences released in conjunction with the World Congress on Information Technology (WCIT) last May. That earlier study showed that nearly 70 percent of consumers favored biometrics as the preferred method to combat fraud and identity theft, pointing to the convenience and speed in the identity verification process as a strong benefit.
Biometrics Adoption in U.S. Airports & Borders Could Increase Consumer Trust
The Unisys Trusted Enterprise Index found that beyond physical security, consumers believe biometrics will have the single greatest impact on strengthening U.S. airport security. Nearly two thirds (62 percent) of consumers claim they would have more trust in airport security as a result of a program like Registered Traveler, a government-supported private sector program that uses biometrics to enable frequent fliers to pass through the security screening process more quickly and efficiently without compromising security.
Similarly, close to 85 percent of consumers believe U.S. border security is inadequate, and only half believe the U.S. government is making it a priority. More than half (51 percent) feel that technology plays a significant role in ensuring homeland security, and point to biometrics as one of the best ways to improve protection, after physical security.
The Department of Homeland Security's Secure Border Initiative (SBI) includes a mix of technology and infrastructure that will provide U.S. Customs and Border Protection with an integrated border enforcement solution. Biometrics is one of the technologies that will improve law enforcement agents' ability to identify people attempting to enter the country illegally.
"The only way to increase detection of illegal entry attempts and smuggling at the land ports of entry without negatively impacting legitimate trade and travel is by using biometrics to identify trusted travelers," said Cohn. "New programs like Registered Traveler and the Secure Border Initiative take advantage of biometric technology, which, according to Unisys research, may play an important role in encouraging a more trusted and secure as well as convenient customer experience. It's imperative that we understand which technologies consumers prefer and will accept comfortably, because that will essentially determine the effectiveness of security measures across the globe."
About the Research
The research was conducted on behalf of Unisys by the Ponemon Institute. The Ponemon Institute polled 1,744 respondents from a sampling frame of close to 16,000 consumers in the United States and coordinated with Ipsos/MORI in the United Kingdom, which polled 500 U.K. consumers in the November 2006. Consumers ranged in age from 18 to 75 with reported household incomes ranging from less than $20,000 to more than $201,000 per annum. Surveys were conducted online.
The research is part of a broader multi-year global initiative, the Unisys Trusted Enterprise Index. The index will serve as a comprehensive tool for companies and governments to better redefine their own security and business processes for greater impact and visibility into the cause and effect relationships between business and technology goals and how they serve customers.
About Unisys
Unisys (NYSE:UIS - News) is a worldwide technology services and solutions company. Our consultants apply Unisys expertise in consulting, systems integration, outsourcing, infrastructure, and server technology to help our clients achieve secure business operations. We build more secure organizations by creating visibility into clients' business operations. Leveraging the Unisys 3D Visible Enterprise approach, we make visible the impact of their decisions--ahead of investments, opportunities and risks. For more information, visit www.unisys.com.
RELEASE NO.: 0205/8750
http://www.unisys.com/about__unisys/news_a_events/02058750.htm
Unisys is a registered trademark of Unisys Corporation. All other brands and products referenced herein are acknowledged to be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.
Contact:
Unisys
Danielle D'Angelo, 914-262-9834
danielle.dangelo@unisys.com
or
Peppercom for Unisys
Dawn Lauer, 212-931-6185
dlauer@peppercom.com
Source: Unisys
Who knew?
amen to that.
she was truly a giant among midgets.
so, contrary to his often repeated canard, he is not, according to Landmark et al, simply an entertainer...
or was that "a simple-minded entertainer"...
something like that.of course the Nobel committee has awarded the peace prize to worse people in the past, Kissinger comes to mind.
but not usually.
he is a man with much to answer for. i want to believe in Karmic debt when I ponder individuals such as he.
anyway, rooster, you are usually on ignore with me, yet somehow you slipped the neverland.
so you benefit by my presence: may it fill you with grace.
Kongi - Shawn
greetings from a bit north of you.
I am unable to dialog on these boards because of the time that I lag behind interesting posts, and of the other boards that I read.
here is a good article i was recently sent: something to ponder.
My biggest fear, at my age of 59, is that there is little left that I can do to make things better. ah, well, one does what one can.
anyway, the article:
Empire v. Democracy: Why Nemesis Is at Our Door
By Chalmers Johnson
TomDispatch.com
Tuesday 30 January 2007
History tells us that one of the most unstable political combinations is a country - like the United States today - that tries to be a domestic democracy and a foreign imperialist. Why this is so can be a very abstract subject. Perhaps the best way to offer my thoughts on this is to say a few words about my new book, Nemesis, and explain why I gave it the subtitle, "The Last Days of the American Republic." Nemesis is the third book to have grown out of my research over the past eight years. I never set out to write a trilogy on our increasingly endangered democracy, but as I kept stumbling on ever more evidence of the legacy of the imperialist pressures we put on many other countries as well as the nature and size of our military empire, one book led to another.
Professionally, I am a specialist in the history and politics of East Asia. In 2000, I published Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire, because my research on China, Japan, and the two Koreas persuaded me that our policies there would have serious future consequences. The book was noticed at the time, but only after 9/11 did the CIA term I adapted for the title - "blowback" - become a household word and my volume a bestseller.
I had set out to explain how exactly our government came to be so hated around the world. As a CIA term of tradecraft, "blowback" does not just mean retaliation for things our government has done to, and in, foreign countries. It refers specifically to retaliation for illegal operations carried out abroad that were kept totally secret from the American public. These operations have included the clandestine overthrow of governments various administrations did not like, the training of foreign militaries in the techniques of state terrorism, the rigging of elections in foreign countries, interference with the economic viability of countries that seemed to threaten the interests of influential American corporations, as well as the torture or assassination of selected foreigners. The fact that these actions were, at least originally, secret meant that when retaliation does come - as it did so spectacularly on September 11, 2001 - the American public is incapable of putting the events in context. Not surprisingly, then, Americans tend to support speedy acts of revenge intended to punish the actual, or alleged, perpetrators. These moments of lashing out, of course, only prepare the ground for yet another cycle of blowback.
A World of Bases
As a continuation of my own analytical odyssey, I then began doing research on the network of 737 American military bases we maintained around the world (according to the Pentagon's own 2005 official inventory). Not including the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, we now station over half a million U.S. troops, spies, contractors, dependents, and others on military bases located in more than 130 countries, many of them presided over by dictatorial regimes that have given their citizens no say in the decision to let us in.
As but one striking example of imperial basing policy: For the past sixty-one years, the U.S. military has garrisoned the small Japanese island of Okinawa with 37 bases. Smaller than Kauai in the Hawaiian Islands, Okinawa is home to 1.3 million people who live cheek-by-jowl with 17,000 Marines of the 3rd Marine Division and the largest U.S. installation in East Asia - Kadena Air Force Base. There have been many Okinawan protests against the rapes, crimes, accidents, and pollution caused by this sort of concentration of American troops and weaponry, but so far the U. S. military - in collusion with the Japanese government - has ignored them. My research into our base world resulted in The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic, written during the run-up to the Iraq invasion.
As our occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq turned into major fiascoes, discrediting our military leadership, ruining our public finances, and bringing death and destruction to hundreds of thousands of civilians in those countries, I continued to ponder the issue of empire. In these years, it became ever clearer that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and their supporters were claiming, and actively assuming, powers specifically denied to a president by our Constitution. It became no less clear that Congress had almost completely abdicated its responsibilities to balance the power of the executive branch. Despite the Democratic sweep in the 2006 election, it remains to be seen whether these tendencies can, in the long run, be controlled, let alone reversed.
Until the 2004 presidential election, ordinary citizens of the United States could at least claim that our foreign policy, including our illegal invasion of Iraq, was the work of George Bush's administration and that we had not put him in office. After all, in 2000, Bush lost the popular vote and was appointed president thanks to the intervention of the Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision. But in November 2004, regardless of claims about voter fraud, Bush actually won the popular vote by over 3.5 million ballots, making his regime and his wars ours.
Whether Americans intended it or not, we are now seen around the world as approving the torture of captives at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, at Bagram Air Base in Kabul, at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and at a global network of secret CIA prisons, as well as having endorsed Bush's claim that, as commander-in-chief in "wartime," he is beyond all constraints of the Constitution or international law. We are now saddled with a rigged economy based on record-setting trade and fiscal deficits, the most secretive and intrusive government in our country's memory, and the pursuit of "preventive" war as a basis for foreign policy. Don't forget as well the potential epidemic of nuclear proliferation as other nations attempt to adjust to and defend themselves against Bush's preventive wars, while our own already staggering nuclear arsenal expands toward first-strike primacy and we expend unimaginable billions on futuristic ideas for warfare in outer space.
The Choice Ahead
By the time I came to write Nemesis, I no longer doubted that maintaining our empire abroad required resources and commitments that would inevitably undercut, or simply skirt, what was left of our domestic democracy and that might, in the end, produce a military dictatorship or - far more likely - its civilian equivalent. The combination of huge standing armies, almost continuous wars, an ever growing economic dependence on the military-industrial complex and the making of weaponry, and ruinous military expenses as well as a vast, bloated "defense" budget, not to speak of the creation of a whole second Defense Department (known as the Department of Homeland Security) has been destroying our republican structure of governing in favor of an imperial presidency. By republican structure, of course, I mean the separation of powers and the elaborate checks and balances that the founders of our country wrote into the Constitution as the main bulwarks against dictatorship and tyranny, which they greatly feared.
We are on the brink of losing our democracy for the sake of keeping our empire. Once a nation starts down that path, the dynamics that apply to all empires come into play - isolation, overstretch, the uniting of local and global forces opposed to imperialism, and in the end bankruptcy.
History is instructive on this dilemma. If we choose to keep our empire, as the Roman republic did, we will certainly lose our democracy and grimly await the eventual blowback that imperialism generates. There is an alternative, however. We could, like the British Empire after World War II, keep our democracy by giving up our empire. The British did not do a particularly brilliant job of liquidating their empire and there were several clear cases where British imperialists defied their nation's commitment to democracy in order to hang on to foreign privileges. The war against the Kikuyu in Kenya in the 1950s and the Anglo-French-Israeli invasion of Egypt in 1956 are particularly savage examples of that. But the overall thrust of postwar British history is clear: the people of the British Isles chose democracy over imperialism.
In her book The Origins of Totalitarianism, the political philosopher Hannah Arendt offered the following summary of British imperialism and its fate:
"On the whole it was a failure because of the dichotomy between the nation-state's legal principles and the methods needed to oppress other people permanently. This failure was neither necessary nor due to ignorance or incompetence. British imperialists knew very well that 'administrative massacres' could keep India in bondage, but they also knew that public opinion at home would not stand for such measures. Imperialism could have been a success if the nation-state had been willing to pay the price, to commit suicide and transform itself into a tyranny. It is one of the glories of Europe, and especially of Great Britain, that she preferred to liquidate the empire."
I agree with this judgment. When one looks at Prime Minister Tony Blair's unnecessary and futile support of Bush's invasion and occupation of Iraq, one can only conclude that it was an atavistic response, that it represented a British longing to relive the glories - and cruelties - of a past that should have been ancient history.
As a form of government, imperialism does not seek or require the consent of the governed. It is a pure form of tyranny. The American attempt to combine domestic democracy with such tyrannical control over foreigners is hopelessly contradictory and hypocritical. A country can be democratic or it can be imperialistic, but it cannot be both.
The Road to Imperial Bankruptcy
The American political system failed to prevent this combination from developing - and may now be incapable of correcting it. The evidence strongly suggests that the legislative and judicial branches of our government have become so servile in the presence of the imperial Presidency that they have largely lost the ability to respond in a principled and independent manner. Even in the present moment of congressional stirring, there seems to be a deep sense of helplessness. Various members of Congress have already attempted to explain how the one clear power they retain - to cut off funds for a disastrous program - is not one they are currently prepared to use.
So the question becomes, if not Congress, could the people themselves restore Constitutional government? A grass-roots movement to abolish secret government, to bring the CIA and other illegal spying operations and private armies out of the closet of imperial power and into the light, to break the hold of the military-industrial complex, and to establish genuine public financing of elections may be at least theoretically conceivable. But given the conglomerate control of our mass media and the difficulties of mobilizing our large and diverse population, such an opting for popular democracy, as we remember it from our past, seems unlikely.
It is possible that, at some future moment, the U.S. military could actually take over the government and declare a dictatorship (though its commanders would undoubtedly find a gentler, more user-friendly name for it). That is, after all, how the Roman republic ended - by being turned over to a populist general, Julius Caesar, who had just been declared dictator for life. After his assassination and a short interregnum, it was his grandnephew Octavian who succeeded him and became the first Roman emperor, Augustus Caesar. The American military is unlikely to go that route. But one cannot ignore the fact that professional military officers seem to have played a considerable role in getting rid of their civilian overlord, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. The new directors of the CIA, its main internal branches, the National Security Agency, and many other key organs of the "defense establishment" are now military (or ex-military) officers, strongly suggesting that the military does not need to take over the government in order to control it. Meanwhile, the all-volunteer army has emerged as an ever more separate institution in our society, its profile less and less like that of the general populace.
Nonetheless, military coups, however decorous, are not part of the American tradition, nor that of the officer corps, which might well worry about how the citizenry would react to a move toward open military dictatorship. Moreover, prosecutions of low-level military torturers from Abu Ghraib prison and killers of civilians in Iraq have demonstrated to enlisted troops that obedience to illegal orders can result in dire punishment in a situation where those of higher rank go free. No one knows whether ordinary soldiers, even from what is no longer in any normal sense a citizen army, would obey clearly illegal orders to oust an elected government or whether the officer corps would ever have sufficient confidence to issue such orders. In addition, the present system already offers the military high command so much - in funds, prestige, and future employment via the famed "revolving door" of the military-industrial complex - that a perilous transition to anything like direct military rule would make little sense under reasonably normal conditions.
Whatever future developments may prove to be, my best guess is that the U.S. will continue to maintain a façade of Constitutional government and drift along until financial bankruptcy overtakes it. Of course, bankruptcy will not mean the literal end of the U.S. any more than it did for Germany in 1923, China in 1948, or Argentina in 2001-2002. It might, in fact, open the way for an unexpected restoration of the American system - or for military rule, revolution, or simply some new development we cannot yet imagine.
Certainly, such a bankruptcy would mean a drastic lowering of our standard of living, a further loss of control over international affairs, a sudden need to adjust to the rise of other powers, including China and India, and a further discrediting of the notion that the United States is somehow exceptional compared to other nations. We will have to learn what it means to be a far poorer country - and the attitudes and manners that go with it. As Anatol Lieven, author of America Right or Wrong: An Anatomy of American Nationalism, observes:
"U.S. global power, as presently conceived by the overwhelming majority of the U.S. establishment, is unsustainable ... The empire can no longer raise enough taxes or soldiers, it is increasingly indebted, and key vassal states are no longer reliable ... The result is that the empire can no longer pay for enough of the professional troops it needs to fulfill its self-assumed imperial tasks."
In February 2006, the Bush administration submitted to Congress a $439 billion defense appropriation budget for fiscal year 2007. As the country enters 2007, the administration is about to present a nearly $100 billion supplementary request to Congress just for the Iraq and Afghan wars. At the same time, the deficit in the country's current account - the imbalance in the trading of goods and services as well as the shortfall in all other cross-border payments from interest income and rents to dividends and profits on direct investments - underwent its fastest ever quarterly deterioration. For 2005, the current account deficit was $805 billion, 6.4% of national income. In 2005, the U.S. trade deficit, the largest component of the current account deficit, soared to an all-time high of $725.8 billion, the fourth consecutive year that America's trade debts set records. The trade deficit with China alone rose to $201.6 billion, the highest imbalance ever recorded with any country. Meanwhile, since mid-2000, the country has lost nearly three million manufacturing jobs.
To try to cope with these imbalances, on March 16, 2006, Congress raised the national debt limit from $8.2 trillion to $8.96 trillion. This was the fourth time since George W. Bush took office that it had to be raised. The national debt is the total amount owed by the government and should not be confused with the federal budget deficit, the annual amount by which federal spending exceeds revenue. Had Congress not raised the debt limit, the U.S. government would not have been able to borrow more money and would have had to default on its massive debts.
Among the creditors that finance these unprecedented sums, the two largest are the central banks of China (with $853.7 billion in reserves) and Japan (with $831.58 billion in reserves), both of which are the managers of the huge trade surpluses these countries enjoy with the United States. This helps explain why our debt burden has not yet triggered what standard economic theory would dictate: a steep decline in the value of the U.S. dollar followed by a severe contraction of the American economy when we found we could no longer afford the foreign goods we like so much. So far, both the Chinese and Japanese governments continue to be willing to be paid in dollars in order to sustain American purchases of their exports.
For the sake of their own domestic employment, both countries lend huge amounts to the American treasury, but there is no guarantee of how long they will want to, or be able to do so. Marshall Auerback, an international financial strategist, says we have become a "Blanche Dubois economy" (so named after the leading character in the Tennessee Williams play A Streetcar Named Desire) heavily dependent on "the kindness of strangers." Unfortunately, in our case, as in Blanche's, there are ever fewer strangers willing to support our illusions.
So my own hope is that - if the American people do not find a way to choose democracy over empire - at least our imperial venture will end not with a nuclear bang but a financial whimper. From the present vantage point, it certainly seems a daunting challenge for any President (or Congress) from either party even to begin the task of dismantling the military-industrial complex, ending the pall of "national security" secrecy and the "black budgets" that make public oversight of what our government does impossible, and bringing the president's secret army, the CIA, under democratic control. It's evident that Nemesis - in Greek mythology the goddess of vengeance, the punisher of hubris and arrogance - is already a visitor in our country, simply biding her time before she makes her presence known.
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Chalmers Johnson is a retired professor of Asian Studies at the University of California, San Diego. From 1968 until 1972 he served as a consultant to the Office of National Estimates of the Central Intelligence Agency. Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic, the final volume in his Blowback Trilogy, is just now being published. In 2006 he appeared in the prize-winning documentary film Why We Fight.
yup
OT: Better than hanging from a building for 6 centuries ...with nothing to say.
Been reading this board for a long while.
I understand the fervor of your conversion, Kongi, but I am afraid that the simple answer is not necessarily the correct one.
there is much that does not meet the eye, much information is hidden or simply unavailable.
so it becomes easy to condemn everything and everyone as though somewhere out there, everything stands still.
to me, everything is a moving target: everything is constantly in flux.
someone spoke of this possibly being a "think tank" to grow new ideas, and that is a good suggestion. it does no one good to repeat emotionally charged and unsubstantiated statements.\I repeat, there is much that is unknown to us about the relationships in the middle east and Iraq in particular.
What IS known to most, is the fact that our presence in that country, needlessly stirs that population even more, while we occupy the land.
In my opinion, we should exit Iraq, and meddle in a more mercantile fashion.
we should try to be the "shining city on the hill" by "best practices" as a business minded country, not through heavy handed militarism. by best practices, of course, I am assuming a practical, yet high moral ground best practices.
"kill'em with kindness" sort of thing. not really kill'em.
and, as a cautionary note, though you may well ask who I am to strew warnings, I would say that the www is a world where everything possible is, and not everything possible is reality.
thanks for your attention
Mark,
should have read onward
many good articles. good to see you back in good form.
my deepest condolences on the loss of your good friend.
nothing like the unexpected death of a friend or loved one to sharpen your focus.
please keep up the good work
very good article.
this underscores the rift in the country, and why the "healing" is such a hard process. There are too many making hay on rhe pain and suffering of others: whether it is in the domain of religion or politics. viz. the GWOT
The holy blitz rolls on
Pastor Rod Parsley of the World Harvest Church
AP file photo
The Christian right is a "deeply anti-democratic movement" that gains force by exploiting Americans' fears, argues Chris Hedges. Salon talks with the former New York Times reporter about his fearless new book, "American Fascists."
By Michelle Goldberg
Jan. 08, 2007 | Longtime war correspondent Chris Hedges, the former New York Times bureau chief in the Middle East and the Balkans, knows a lot about the savagery that people are capable of, especially when they're besotted with dreams of religious or national redemption. In his acclaimed 2002 book, "War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning ...
a fascinating rediscovery!
if true, then this illustrates what may be the tip of an iceberg of lost knowledge.
I can't even begin to imagine the kind of available technology at that distant past to create such a machine as described here, never mind the translation of the observational knowledge into an actually functioning machine.
if true, this tells me how little we really know of our past history as human beings. when this was found a hundred years ago, no one had an inkling of what this device could be.
thanks for posting this story.