State of the Union 2012

We gather tonight knowing that this generation of heroes has made the United States safer and more respected around the world. For the first time in nine years, there are no Americans fighting in Iraq. For the first time in two decades, Osama bin Laden is not a threat to this country. Most of al Qaeda’s top lieutenants have been defeated. The Taliban’s momentum has been broken, and some troops in Afghanistan have begun to come home.

There are in fact Americans in Iraq. The same Americans that made up a large percentage of the "combatants" in that country: Independent Contractors. They are American (and maybe some other nationalities). So the most accurate comment is that there are no US GIs in Iraq. They are now in Kuwait. That is those who have not been sent home or to Afghanistan.

As for the Taliban, The US is currently in negotiations with the Taliban. I'm not sure how this equals "momentum is broken". I told you in 2003 that the US was dealing with the Taliban and I told you again last week that the US is dealing with the Taliban.

Think about the America within our reach: A country that leads the world in educating its people. An America that attracts a new generation of high-tech manufacturing and high-paying jobs.

You all did read the NY Times piece on why Apple produces the iPhone in China and why Steve Jobs told Obama outright that those jobs are not coming back. Alrighty then.

We can do this. I know we can, because we’ve done it before. At the end of World War II, when another generation of heroes returned home from combat, they built the strongest economy and middle class the world has ever known. My grandfather, a veteran of Patton’s Army, got the chance to go to college on the GI Bill. My grandmother, who worked on a bomber assembly line, was part of a workforce that turned out the best products on Earth.

Very true. Of course since the countries the US now competes with were still under colonial control and therefore the international playing field was nowhere near "level" of course the US had such spectacular growth.

I won't discuss the segregation.... Speaking of which:

The two of them shared the optimism of a Nation that had triumphed over a depression and fascism. They understood they were part of something larger; that they were contributing to a story of success that every American had a chance to share – the basic American promise that if you worked hard, you could do well enough to raise a family, own a home, send your kids to college, and put a little away for retirement.

Unless you were black. In which case, well, if you made it you were VERY fortunate on top of the hard work you did. But that kind of history doesn't make for feel good State of the Union speeches.

We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well, while a growing number of Americans barely get by. Or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules.

I'm sorry but is Obama somehow unaware that there was never a time in US history where "everyone" got a fair shot? Or where everybody played by the same rules? There is no history to back this up. Why are black people eating this up when they know this was simply not the case?

Let’s remember how we got here. Long before the recession, jobs and manufacturing began leaving our shores. Technology made businesses more efficient, but also made some jobs obsolete. Folks at the top saw their incomes rise like never before, but most hardworking Americans struggled with costs that were growing, paychecks that weren’t, and personal debt that kept piling up.

In 2008, the house of cards collapsed. We learned that mortgages had been sold to people who couldn’t afford or understand them. Banks had made huge bets and bonuses with other people’s money. Regulators had looked the other way, or didn’t have the authority to stop the bad behavior.

That offshoring was going on under both Democratic and Republican administrations and congresses. In regards to the mortgages and the subprime fraud. The regulators did in fact have authority. They looked away. We know that. So lets' not act as if the regulators could not do anything.

On the day I took office, our auto industry was on the verge of collapse. Some even said we should let it die. With a million jobs at stake, I refused to let that happen. In exchange for help, we demanded responsibility. We got workers and automakers to settle their differences. We got the industry to retool and restructure. Today, General Motors is back on top as the world’s number one automaker. Chrysler has grown faster in the U.S. than any major car company. Ford is investing billions in U.S. plants and factories. And together, the entire industry added nearly 160,000 jobs

Absolutely the best decision made by the administration. But do be clear that in terms of GM, they were also saved by the Chinese who for some reason love Buicks. GM's largest sales, as far as I know, come from China, not the US. I'm not saying that to down the statement made by Obama, but to point out the increasing irrelevance of the US consumer as the Chinese grow their economy.

We can’t bring back every job that’s left our shores.

I'm glad he said it. It was said by many that there was going to be a new normal for unemployment. Many didn't believe it. I wonder how long until this sinks in.


Now there's a long stint on teachers and education. Good talk but since education policy is largely state based, there is nothing Obama can actually do but ask and suggest the states to do. Which is underscored here:

So tonight, I call on every State to require that all students stay in high school until they graduate or turn eighteen.

Now I don't know for certain, but I was under the impression that school attendance was compulsory. But even if it isn't, how does one deal with some of the reasons that people drop out such as issues at home? Also given the high rates of drop outs in certain communities who's going to foot the bill for the necessary school space and teachers for those students? Not that I'm being down on the suggestion, but just keeping it real. For example Mayor Bloomberg of NYC is on record saying how he'd remove up to half the teachers (assuming this quote to be accurate). I don't see how overcrowded classrooms helps anyone, particularly students who have special needs (or extra attention).

As to the cost of a college education, Obama said:

this Congress needs to stop the interest rates on student loans from doubling in July. Extend the tuition tax credit we started that saves middle-class families thousands of dollars. And give more young people the chance to earn their way through college by doubling the number of work-study jobs in the next five years.

I think the reason why he is saying that interest rates would double is due to the following

The bill eliminates $9-billion that had been approved in the House version to reduce the interest rate on federally subsidized loans in 2012-13 and subsequent years. That rate is now due to drop to 4.5 percent for the 2010-11 academic year and 3.4 percent the following year, but then rise to 6.8 percent after that.

It would appear that there will need to be money spent to get that interest rate to not go up.

So let me put colleges and universities on notice: If you can’t stop tuition from going up, the funding you get from taxpayers will go down. Higher education can’t be a luxury – it’s an economic imperative that every family in America should be able to afford.

That's a nice line. I work in education. Tuition WILL go up. If the state cannot cover it's cost of doing business (employee raises, technology maintenance and procurement, cost of third party services, etc.) they will raise tuition. Obama knows this. His people know this. This is an empty threat. If this threat is carried out, what will happen is that faculty and staff (the people who run these schools) will be forced into furloughs. Furloughs are a quaint way of saying "pay cut". Now some faculty members at the high end of the salary range will probably be able to absorb that. But there are many people at the low end of the salary range for whom such a thing can be a disaster for their household budget.

Higher education can’t be a luxury – it’s an economic imperative that every family in America should be able to afford.

Let's be clear. A College education is already a luxury. Only 27% of the US population has a 4 year degree. College education has always been "for the few". The real issue is an employable education for all.

That’s why my Administration has put more boots on the border than ever before. That’s why there are fewer illegal crossings than when I took office.

Actually the fewer crossings have more to do with the depressed economy than with "boots on the ground".

Moving on.

Nowhere is the promise of innovation greater than in American-made energy. Over the last three years, we’ve opened millions of new acres for oil and gas exploration, and tonight, I’m directing my Administration to open more than 75 percent of our potential offshore oil and gas resources. Right now, American oil production is the highest that it’s been in eight years. That’s right – eight years. Not only that – last year, we relied less on foreign oil than in any of the past sixteen years.

But with only 2 percent of the world’s oil reserves, oil isn’t enough. This country needs an all-out, all-of-the-above strategy that develops every available source of American energy – a strategy that’s cleaner, cheaper, and full of new jobs.

Going by the comments I saw on Twitter, I am under the impression that folks on the left are now for drill baby drill. I think liberals need to make up their minds. Are they against drilling for environmental reasons like oil spills and global warming or are they not?

Now if we know that only 2% of the work reserves are in the US, then no matter how much oil is "opened up", there is no escaping dependency on foreign oil. So the ONLY way to get off foreign oil is to get off oil completely.

We have a supply of natural gas that can last America nearly one hundred years, and my Administration will take every possible action to safely develop this energy. Experts believe this will support more than 600,000 jobs by the end of the decade. And I’m requiring all companies that drill for gas on public lands to disclose the chemicals they use. America will develop this resource without putting the health and safety of our citizens at risk.

I will simply direct the reader to the 60 Minutes report on drilling and the consequences on certain neighborhoods in the vicinity of said operations.

In the next few weeks, I will sign an Executive Order clearing away the red tape that slows down too many construction projects. But you need to fund these projects. Take the money we’re no longer spending at war, use half of it to pay down our debt, and use the rest to do some nation-building right here at home.

Absolutely. I've been saying this.

We will also establish a Financial Crimes Unit of highly trained investigators to crack down on large-scale fraud and protect people’s investments. Some financial firms violate major anti-fraud laws because there’s no real penalty for being a repeat offender.

But he just said that there were no regulations. Which one is it sir?

Right now, our most immediate priority is stopping a tax hike on 160 million working Americans while the recovery is still fragile. People cannot afford losing $40 out of each paycheck this year. There are plenty of ways to get this done. So let’s agree right here, right now: No side issues. No drama. Pass the payroll tax cut without delay.

I thought this was already done. Anyway, yes, yes they can because that payroll tax goes to social security that they'll likely be pulling from in the future. And that payroll tax is on a sliding scale depending on how much you make. And if you make enough to get that $40 hit, you're not in financial straights; at least not one of the government's making.

’m prepared to make more reforms that rein in the long term costs of Medicare and Medicaid, and strengthen Social Security, so long as those programs remain a guarantee of security for seniors.

Which cannot be done while cutting the payroll tax that directly funds Social Security.

Moving on to taxes:

Now, you can call this class warfare all you want. But asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary in taxes? Most Americans would call that common sense.

I agree with this but I don't see it happening. Both parties are deep in hock to corporations for this to go down.

On Executive Power:

The executive branch also needs to change. Too often, it’s inefficient, outdated and remote. That’s why I’ve asked this Congress to grant me the authority to consolidate the federal bureaucracy so that our Government is leaner, quicker, and more responsive to the needs of the American people.

Really? After signing an unconstitutional law that could indefinitely detain people, we are supposed to give the executive more unchecked power? Really? Are people so un worship of Obama that they'd actually go for that?

On War:

From Pakistan to Yemen, the al Qaeda operatives who remain are scrambling, knowing that they can’t escape the reach of the United States of America.

Yes because under this president we have to most drones in operations and have killed more people with them than any other president. Ever.

Look at Iran. Through the power of our diplomacy, a world that was once divided about how to deal with Iran’s nuclear program now stands as one. The regime is more isolated than ever before; its leaders are faced with crippling sanctions, and as long as they shirk their responsibilities, this pressure will not relent. Let there be no doubt: America is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and I will take no options off the table to achieve that goal. But a peaceful resolution of this issue is still possible, and far better, and if Iran changes course and meets its obligations, it can rejoin the community of nations.

I don't expect a single liberal to even comment negatively about this. Not a single one. Not a one that rightly derided McCain's "bomb, bomb Iran". Not one. Sanctions are acts of war. Iran is a signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. It has met it's obligations under that treaty. Furthermore; as a sovereign state it has the right to develop whatever nuclear devices it wishes.

What is the school there for?

“Oh yes it is and I will say it again, you are lazy. Poor and uneducated Africans are the most hardworking people on earth. I saw them in the Lusaka markets and on the street selling merchandise. I saw them in villages toiling away. I saw women on Kafue Road crushing stones for sell and I wept. I said to myself where are the Zambian intellectuals? Are the Zambian engineers so imperceptive they cannot invent a simple stone crusher, or a simple water filter to purify well water for those poor villagers? Are you telling me that after thirty-seven years of independence your university school of engineering has not produced a scientist or an engineer who can make simple small machines for mass use? What is the school there for?”

...“As long as you are dependent on my plane, I shall feel superior and you my friend shall remain inferior, how about that? The Chinese, Japanese, Indians, even Latinos are a notch better. You Africans are at the bottom of the totem pole.”

I don't know if the story related here is fiction or not, but the sentiments are completely Garveyite in nature. Don't get mad at the Bwana for saying it. Garvey made the same argument.

Former Liberian dictator Charles Taylor had US spy agency ties

WASHINGTON - When Charles G. Taylor tied bed sheets together to escape from a second-floor window at the Plymouth House of Correction on Sept. 15, 1985, he was more than a fugitive trying to avoid extradition. He was a sought-after source for American intelligence...

The Defense Intelligence Agency refused to reveal any details about the relationship, saying doing so would harm national security.

Taylor, 63, pleaded innocent in 2009 to multiple counts of murder, rape, attacking civilians, and deploying child soldiers during a civil war in neighboring Sierra Leone while he was president of Liberia from 1997 to 2003.

Well we've always known that US National Security interests are above those of the innocent people now either dead or limbless. Or in the case of Libya, simply wiped out.

So remember this when next you think to pooh-pooh claims by certain governments (Iran) that they have captured spies and that there are spies in their countries. Just know that a lot of innocent people are dead for US "national security" interests.

PS: This is why I believe the US had Bin Ladin killed on sight and thrown into the sea. There was NO WAY the US wanted detailed information on how in bed they were with that man. Dead negroes may not concern a lot of people, but 3000K dead Americans? That's another thing entirely.

Where Are You From

I’ve also had these questions about identity since I was nine years old. I wrote a whole chapter called ‘Where are you from?” where I describe the sensation of being in Switzerland or Sweden or Germany or London and running into an indigenous African, an African who was not a forced immigrant because of the slave trade. On countless occasions before I even opened my mouth, an African man or woman would walk up to me and ask, ‘Where are you from?” I would answer, “I’m from Houston, Texas.” They would say, “Okay great, that’s where you live but where are you from? Where are your people from?” I would stand there like, “What is this person talking about?” That happened so many different times

Isaiah Washington

Just Can't Be Black

The thing with these Garifuna is that they are no more or less "mixed" than many people in Jamaica, Trinidad, etc.

That they object to using "black" when "Black" is generally a catch all for those of African Descent, which clearly these folks are (more so if you look at the culture) shows just how divided the black house is. Of course some of them, just like some Jamaicans, and African-Americans are not black and/or are more mixed than others.

My suggestion: They should check the "black" box and also the other box and put in their ethnic identity. Just like there are Gullahs in the US African-American population.

Silliness in the Name of God

When the whole Mohammed Cartoon mess flared up a few years back I was very vocal in my support of the Danish newpapers and anyone else for that matter who made a cartoon of Mohammed, Jesus, Buddah, Ogun, the local Rabbi, whom and whatever, because it is my belief that freedom of speech trumps the religious sensitivities of anyone. Self included and I often have issues with representations of my belief system and those who adhere to it. Personally I prefer to call them out on their hypocrisy or racism, or both but I do not advocate censoring them because censorship does not change minds it merely drives speech underground and breeds resentment. Nor do I support the passage of so called "hate speech" or "hate crime" legislation for the same reasons. Such legislation aims to protect folks from being insulted, which is NOT the purpose of government. I have been and will continue to point out the slippery slope it is to erect legal barriers to expression that a particular party finds objectionable. In India we have such an example:

Last month, a Delhi court had suggested that 21 companies including Yahoo, Orkut, Facebook and Google should be tried for "selling, publicly exhibiting and...(circulating) obscene, lascivious content". A petition referred the court to obscene online depictions of several gods and goddesses, as well as the Prophet Mohammed.

This no doubt inspired by the pandering speeches given by various heads of state in response to the Mohammed cartoons. One day these folks will understand that abiding by specific taboos and the like towards icons of a religion are only obligated to those who adhere to said religion. Everyone else is free to not give a damn.

Doesn't Make Sense

Paul Craig Roberts Strikes again:

Washington is getting all of us in over our heads. Washington has declared the “Asia-Pacific” and the South China Sea to be areas of “America’s national interest.” What sense does this make? It makes the same sense as if China declared the Gulf of Mexico and the Mediterranean Sea to be areas of China’s national interest.

I do however; disagree with his analysis that Iran is not seeking a nuclear weapon. I believe Iran wants one and that the hold ups are a combination of the assassinations as well as the need to secure the locations. I am not bothered one bit by a nuclear Iran. Iran is a sovereign country and can develop nuclear arms if it so chooses; just as the US does not take direction from Iran on what it can and cannot develop. The ranting about not allowing Iran to have a nuke reeks of ye olde White Supremacy that got the Middle East into the situation it is in now. It is not different from disarming the natives of colonized lands (so called "trouble makers") and arming those natives who are "friendly" to the new occupiers with superior weapons. Same shit new location.

Covert War Against Iran

Let's not kid ourselves. Seven Nuclear scientists are killed, one by one in Iran, often with explosives is not an accident. A computer virus that specifically targets a centrifuge made by a specific company is not an accident. From the NY Times:

The Israeli military spokesman, Brig. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, writing on Facebook about the attack, said, “I don’t know who took revenge on the Iranian scientist, but I am definitely not shedding a tear,” Israeli news media reported.

While we're not going to comment on Israel's attitude towards Iran, I will note the use of the word "revenge". Why did this person use that word. Why would anyone "take revenge" on a nuclear scientist...or seven of them? One may take "revenge" against a state, but this "revenge" commentary, in my opinion, simply tipped the hand of the Israelis as being behind these events. It does not help that we know that Israel has been itching to bomb Iran.

let's not even get into the not so covert assasination caught on video of a Hezbollah agents by members of Mossad.

I will say this though, When you engage in blowing up cars in public places, you are no better than the so called "terrorists" you scream about.

Conspiracy Theory or Not?

Many years ago, January 2004 to precise I discussed the economic reasons for the US going into Afghanistan:

the bases more importantly, improved "American access to Kazakh and Turkmen oil and gas," and extended "US influence to a region hitherto dominated by Russia and of constant concern to China (4)." The bases in essence paved the way for America to gain a foothold in a globally strategic region thereby putting it in a better position to compete with Russia and China for the great oil treasures of the Caspian Sea.


In addition to being the world's largest lake, the Caspian sea is believed to hold vast oil reserves comparable to those of the Middle East. Yet, unlike the Middle East, transport of the extracted black gold from the landlocked lake to the open sea is a major hurdle. Therefore, the primary issue guiding the politics of the region revolve around not ownership of oil, rather control of the proposed pipelines by which the oil is transported5. It is within this context that Uzbekistan has emerged as "the key strategic state in the area (5)."

The need for this strategic ownership of oil AND the means to get it to market lead the US to deal with both the Taliban as well as form strategic alliances with Pakistan.

March
Turkmenistan's Foreign Minister Sheikh Muradov meets with Mullah Omar in Kandahar to discuss pipeline.

April
Pakistan, Turkmenistan, and Taliban sign agreement to revive pipeline project.

Now let's look at a recent report from the NY Times

The United Arab Emirates has nearly completed an oil export pipeline from Abu Dhabi, on the Gulf, to the Gulf of Oman, bypassing the Strait of Hormuz...

The project aims to “offset reliance on Arabian Gulf oil terminals...

“Iran’s potential ability to close the choke point is a key trump card that could give it the upper hand” in its face-off with the United States and its allies....

, analysts say completion of the Abu Dhabi pipeline would be a positive step toward greater supply security.

Notice the talk of "security" in many of the comments in the piece. Not really all that different from that discussed in January of 2004. And just think about it. Why even consider such a pipeline to bypass the straight unless one expected some event that could disrupt traffic through that point? How long ago was this devised? Who's been plotting and for how long?


Looking at a map of the region



Look where Iran sits in relationship to today's NYT report and my January 2004 entry.

Clearly those in charge are doing whatever that can to route as much oil around Iran which would, if it were "friendly" be the logical means to pass oil from the Caspian sea into the established ports in the Persian Gulf.

You don't think so? Then why do you think the US is admitting to discussions with the Taliban? And who's at the table?

Over the last year, Marc Grossman, a veteran but low-key diplomat, led a small team of American officials who met secretly from Doha, Qatar, to Munich with a shadowy representative of Afghanistan’s Taliban leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, in hopes of starting peace talks.

The same Mullah Omar I told you about back in 2004.

Don't mind me though.

Campaign Promise? What Campaign Promise?

From our friends at Counterpunch:

Today, President Obama has abandoned his inaugural pledge to close Guantánamo and there are more than 3,000 detainees at Bagram — five times the number of prisoners when the president took office — with a scheduled expansion of the facility by the end of 2012 to house up to 5,500 detainees.

I recall something along the lines of "McSame" during the 2008 campaign. Look, I know full well that politicians say whatever they need to to get elected but exactly at what point do we call a liar a liar regardless of what party set they claim?m Unless of course so called "progressives" are OK with this kind of thing, you know, to keep us safe.

The Mad Dictator

Reading on the increasing influence of the Muslim Brotherhood in countries that had uprisings I stumbled across the following at Counterpunch:

The new “government” has raised it to 750 dinars per month and it is not enough, given approximately 18 per cent rise in prices since this summer when the Gadhafi government enforced anti-gouging rules. Those rules are no longer being enforced and prices continue to rise.

So if I understand this correctly, the dictator who was hoarding money for himself had imposed anti-gouging rules. No doubt this was done so that more riches could flow to him.

Further:

the receipt of payments for Libya oil shipments, even though oil is being shipped today as well as the pay[sic] few months, zero payments have been received at the CB. The reason is said to be that NATO countries are being shipped oil, (also to gas and oil rich Qatar) free of charge under a payback arrangement with NATO for its regime change services.

Paying back? So was this a humanitarian mission or a NATO for hire? I never knew one had to "pay back" a UN humanitarian intervention.

On a different note there is the issue of war and manhood. I have often discussed the problems with warfare in colonial and post colonial countries. It is particularly dangerous when there are large numbers of young unemployed, marginally educated and unattached males wandering around. Due to the aggressive nature of masculinity (that testosterone thing), weapons and males do not make for a good mix. In the Congo, Liberia and other countries where there have been high unemployment and a weak state apparatus young men seeking to validate themselves (and entertain themselves) gravitate to warfare (Not really all that different than the popularity of FPS in so called "first world" countries). So we find in Libya:

A few young men I chatted with during a demonstration at Green Square yesterday actually said they miss the fighting and want to fight some more. “It was really exciting and fun most of the time and I made some great friends!” one kid from Benghazi told me. He plans to stay in Tripoli with his militia buddies.

Whoever comes to power will have to deal with this issue before cliques form up to wreak havoc on the population by being convinced by someone what whomever wins the election really ought not to and....well you know the rest.


The last mistake that the NTC is making is as follows:

It bars, with loosely all-embracing language, “former members of Gadhafi’s regime” from being candidates in the election. Among the judges I spoke with at the Ministry of Justice some expressed dismay because they said that 80 per cent of the current staff at their Ministry, and most other Ministries, worked there, lawyers and judges included, under the Gadhafi regime and were patriotic Libyans. There is going to be lots of confusion concerning the scope of the new law and its application. The new election law also bans anyone who got a degree based on academic research on the Green Book — Gadhafi’s political manifesto that laid out his theory of government and society declaring Libya a “republic of the masses.”

This reminds me of the "de-baathigication" of Iraq. We see how that's going. It would be a huge mistake for the new government to bar those most qualified to run the various arms of government from serving. It is one thing if they are seeking to be seditious, but Ghadaffi is dead and his sons are either dead or about to be imprisoned. There is no "going back" to Ghadaffi. There are only those seeking their own new legacy.

Here's to hoping that some influential people have read Fanon's Pitfalls of National Consciousness.

Trashing The Constitution

I've waited a bit to write on this indefinite detention thing for a few reasons. The first being that the language used in the legislation is questionable in some respects. For example, one of the relevant sections of the NDAA states that US citizens are exempt from the requirement of indefinite detention. I sat on this particular clause because it could be read that the "requirement" statement means that US citizens cannot be indefinitely detained. Another way of reading the statement is that US citizens cannot be required to be detained but that the option of doing so exists.

Indeed Obama's signing statement that his administration would not detain citizens makes the later reading more likely to be the intended meaning of the legislation. That should bother a lot of people.

One of the supreme ironies of this turn of events is that it was a president who was a constitutional scholar who signed this piece of legislation. One can read that in one of two ways:

1) Obama being so well versed in the Constitution knows better than the rest of us whether such a thing as indefinite detention is constitutional.

or

2) Obama knew full well that the indefinite detention part was unconstitutional and signed it anyway.

The later explanation is the most likely interpretation of events since firstly Obama has done clearly unconstitutional stuff before, the most recent being the war on Libya in clear violation of the Constitution as well as the War Powers Act. Secondly we have reports that Obama has indicated that he wished for future "rewording" of the NDAA to remove the kinda-sorta-maybe unconstitutional portions.

What we should be asking is why a US President who is under oath to defend the Constitution of the United States would sign a piece of legislation that he knows contains such an unconstitutional section? We know that the president does not have the authority to do a line item veto over legislation. That is not a bad thing given that such power would essentially allow the president to legislate from the White House. What the president can do is either sign the legislation or veto it. If there is so much support for a piece of legislation the Congress can overturn the presidential veto by a 2/3 vote in the House and Senate.

With that in mind, Obama had the option of vetoing the legislation on the grounds that he would uphold his oath of office and not trash the Constitution. If the Senate and House were so positive of the backing that the legislation had then they could have overridden the veto.

But Obama did not do this. Why?

Back in December of 2010 I wrote about the cave in cave in Obama had committedon the Bush tax cuts where I discussed the "ethics" of hostage taking. Indeed Obama had tipped his hand to the Republicans. The Republicans attached their wish for extended tax breaks for the rich to unemployment benefits. Once Obama blinked the Republicans and anyone with a long term interest in curbing constitutional restraints on the executive knew that all that they had to do to get the things that they wanted was to attach it to something that Obama cared for. I noted, likely on Twitter that this would be a future feature of Republican moves.

Lo and behold we have the Obamaratti who have forwarded this very concept to explain why Obama "had no choice". The "no choice" argument goes as such: Obama had to sign the military bill or the troops would not get paid. Obama can't mess around with soldier paychecks so he did the responsible thing. Ahh the old "Responsible Negro" argument. There has always been a strain of negro who have an affinity for being "responsible" in the face of racism.

Lets go back to the beginning of this post where I noted that he oath of office of the president explicitly demands the protection of the constitution. As a matter of fact members of the military are under the same requirement. There is no requirement that the president make sure the troops are paid. So Constitution trumps paycheck. The president, knowing the veto process should have done his job and protected the constitution by refusing to sign any piece of legislation that had the indefinite detention sections in it AND had the backbone to have followed through on his refusal (This under the assumption that Obama is not actually supportive of such legislation but is playing the good cop to the Republican bad cop because the public demands such a show). Those who want to give the executive the power to designate a person a terrorist (or friend of one) and on that say so have that person detained for as long as there are terrorists without judicial review, warrants or anything of the sort, knew that they could push this president of party that is regularly called out for being weak on terror by attaching it to a "support the troops" kind of legislation.

It's a pretty sad state of affairs when Obama supporters have to bend over backwards when they even bother to actually discuss the topic, to explain why their constitutional scholar and president couldn't do his job. But the people at Black Agenda Report have been consistent in their observations that the powers behind the scenes understood that having a Democrat in office doing these things would effectively silence those who would have been front and center if this was a president McCain or Romney.

The way I see it, Obama should have announced publicly that he would sign no such legislation. Should have vetoed it the minute it hit his desk and made another public announcement that the would uphold his oath of office and if the Congress wanted to trash the constitution he would not have his hand in it and they would have to override the veto. That would have put the spotlight on the members of Congress who would be vulnerable at re-election time, assuming the electorate hadn't already forgotten about this issue....or even cared all that much.

Republicans Showing ther Cracker for Votes

Hot on the heels of Newt Gingrich announcing that Palestinians don't really exist, 'cause you know white people get to determine such things; Rick Santorum is caught seeking to stake his claim as the better Great White Hope, by adding his bit to the mix

Writing in The Jewish Week on Monday, Douglas Bloomfield reminded readers that Mr. Santorum told a man in Iowa six weeks ago that “all the people that live in the West Bank are Israelis. They’re not Palestinians — there is no Palestinian — this is Israeli land.”

So says the white man from Pennsylvania. There is something so retro-white man's burden about white men thousands of miles away, running for office of an entirely different sovereign nation, declaring who's land belongs to who and who does and does not exist. It is also very interesting that Santorum would bring up New Mexico and Texas in his discussion of Israel and the West Bank:

A video of the exchange, which was recorded by CNN, shows that Mr. Santorum responded to a question about whether or not Israel “should dismantle its settlements” by suggesting that the West Bank was as much a part of Israel as Texas and New Mexico are part of the United States. The entire territory, Mr. Santorum added, “is legitimately Israeli country,” so Israelis “have a right to build things based upon their ownership of that land.”

For those unfamiliar. Texas came into the Union after English descended Europeans (generally speaking) decided to up and grab what is now Texas from Mexico a Spanish derived country inhabited largely by Native Americans. So it is clearly a white supremacist notion to say that the West Bank is as much a part of Israel as Texas is American since each are the result of conquest and dispossession of the original inhabitants who, as is usual for crackers, were determined to "not really exist" and who's land "really isn't theirs".

I suppose though that making noise about Ron Paul's old newsletters is preferable than calling a White Supremacist like Gingrich and Santorum exactly what they are.

Putting Blacks and Welfare into a Proper Context...

Brandale Randolph goes in on the recent GOP fascination of black folks on Welfare:

First, it needs to be understood that statistically speaking, blacks are not the face of welfare. Secondly, the disproportional number of blacks who receive welfare are directly related to the disproportional number of blacks whom are living in poverty and unemployed, Finally, it must also be placed within the context of American history. All three of these things are needed in any discussion of blacks and government assistance.

Mexicans confront racism with white, black doll video

The results are predictable:

The kids are seated at a table before a white doll and a black doll, and are asked to pick the "good doll" or the doll that most resembled them. The children, mostly brown-skinned, almost uniformly say the white doll was better or most resembled them.

One child in the video with mixed-race features says the white doll resembled him "in the ears."

"Which doll is the good doll?" a woman's voice asks the child.

"I am not afraid of whites," he responds, pointing to the white doll. "I have more trust."

...

The children who appear in it are mostly mestizos, or half-Spanish, half-Indian, and a message said they were taped with the consent of their parents and told to respond as freely as they could.

What is also predictable was the following response:

Commenters have noted that the options were "very limiting" by offering only black and white, or good and bad, when in Mexico the majority of the population is mixed-race, mostly European and indigenous, and to a lesser extent African and Asian backgrounds.

"It is a poorly formulated question, it is pretentious," one user said on the website VivirMexico (link in Spanish).

But this is really not "limiting" at all. Indeed we can propose that the minimal common contact with African people makes the implications even more damning because none of the subjects can even use actual events in their own lives to form these opinions. Thus their ideas about blackness are pure fictions they either came up with or that were passed onto them by their peers. It is also possible and probable that the local media has a lot to do with this.

It is also important given the immigration of Mexican nationals into the United States. If these attitudes are being brought into the US, how does that affect those persons of African descent in those locations?

For Somali Women, Pain of Being a Spoil of War

Several months later, the men came back. Five militants burst into her hut, pinned her down and gang-raped her, she said. They claimed to be on a jihad, or holy war, and any resistance was considered a crime against Islam, punishable by death.

Gang rape as a pillar of Islam. Well that's a new one to me.

In some areas, they say, women are being used as chits at roadblocks, surrendered to the gunmen staffing the barrier in the road so that a group of desperate refugees can pass.

No comment.

The White Man: The Great Mediator

It is something I have noticed repeated often in the history of those colonized by Europeans.For some reason the Great White Man(tm) is respected (however grudgingly) as The Great Mediator(tm).

Colonized people who are of different ethnicity's will for some really irrational reasons defer to the power or "intellect" of the Great White Man rather than work out problems among themselves. Today's example comes from Iraq:

But there is no doubt that the US withdrawal has had serious psychological impact because many Iraqis feel the US helped defuse differences between Shia, Sunni and Kurds.

There is something to be said when one needs to have the presence of the colonizer to keep one from killing your fellow countrymen in an indiscriminate manner. It reeks of "oh look the parents have left us alone in the house!" mentality of children and immature persons in their late teens.

Judge Blocks Law Against Human Trafficking

In an attempt to overturn a South Carolina anti-illegal immigration law a judge apparently has taken a stand for trafficking of persons.

The judge also blocked provisions that would make it a felony to transport, conceal or protect a person who is entering the country unlawfully

Is this not THE definition of human trafficking? This is what happens when so called "immigrant rights" activists get way too emotional on a subject. The judge, in his zeal to protect citizens and legal residents who may harbor illegal immigrants threw in protections for those who transport illegal immigrants. Now such traffickers do not have to worry about being stopped in South Carolina because the police have no such power to stop such traffickers.

Gotta love it.

America’s Silent Collapse

Sam Smith lays out an indisputable observation of how far America has veered from it's so called "principles":

We have moved into a time in which the Bill of Rights is being routinely trashed, the true unemployment rate is higher than anything we’ve seen since the thirties, our corporations are out of control, no one in power seems to care about climate change, and the only presidential candidate in either major party who won’t send you to Gitmo without an indictment and trial is Ron Paul.

And Ron Paul has no chance of becoming president (which is not necessarily a bad thing but not for his stands on the constitution or the Federal Reserve [sic]).

As if to underscore this issue I just read an article where a set of people were arrested for feeding the homeless in a public park

Jessica Cross, 24, Benjamin Markeson, 49, and Jonathan "Keith" McHenry, 54, were arrested at 6:10 p.m. on a charge of violating the ordinance restricting group feedings in public parks. McHenry is a co-founder of the international Food Not Bombs movement, which began in the early 1980s.

The group lost a court battle in April, clearing the way for the city to enforce the ordinance. It requires groups to obtain a permit and limits each group to two permits per year for each park within a 2-mile radius of City Hall.

Arrest papers state that Cross, Markeson and McHenry helped feed 40 people Wednesday night. The ordinance applies to feedings of more than 25 people.


olice had not enforced the ordinance while the court battle continued. The U.S. District Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta ruled that city rules regulating how often large groups of people can be fed in a park do not violate the Constitution.

Of course there will be those who say "the law is the law" but you really have to think about a situation where the state gets to dictate how many hungry people you can feed without their approval.

Returning to Mr. Smith we find his comparisons to Nazi Germany:

What surprised me at first was that most Germans, so far as I could see, did not seem to mind that their personal freedom had been taken away, that so much of their splendid culture was being destroyed and replaced with a mindless barbarism, or that their life and work were becoming regimented to a degree never before experienced even by a people accustomed for generations to a great deal of regimentation . . .

Many Americans do not mind that there personal freedoms are being taken away for "security" Do they now mind that their so called inalienable rights as enshrined in the Constitution are being stripped from them? Why has political leadership allowed to get away with blatant violations of the 4th Amendment? How is it that the so-called "liberal" wing of the political class has agreed to sign into law, indefinite detention and imprisonment of persons without trial, simply on the say so of the president or some "law enforcement" official that the target is either a terrorist or has given "support" to terrorists?

Like I said in an earlier post on the growing police state:

I think a lot of people have an idea about what a police state is based on movies and from dictators in the middle east, etc. They fail to realize to recognize the purpose of a police state is population control. Particularly the control of dissident voices and actions within the population. it is the ability to track citizens against their wishes, and it usually accompanied by claims of security and safety. A soft police state is still a police state.

Protecting Civilians from Genocide

That was supposed to be the so called "humanitarian" mission launched by NATO and given the blessing and cover by the United Nations.

In the middle of August, between the end of the siege and the killing of Gaddafi, Misratan forces drove out everyone living in Tawergha, a town of 30,000 people. Human rights groups have described this as an act of revenge and collective punishment possibly amounting to a crime against humanity.

Tawerghans are mostly descendants of black slaves. They are generally poor, were patronised by the Gaddafi regime and were broadly supporters of his regime. Some signed up to fight for him as the regime fought for its survival.

So I would like to take a moment to thank President Obama, our first president of African descent for sending NATO on this mission to "prevent the genocide of the Libyan people". I would like to also thank the UN Security council for their steadfastness in upholding the value of the lives of the people of Libya. Extra special shout out to Ban-Ki Moon for providing the necessary legal cover for all this "protection".

Thank you!

Low Down Dirty Fishermen

It appears that some Luo fishermen are making women have sex with them in order to get the "best fish" that they catch.

"When you are a woman and you want to get into the business of selling fish, you must be ready to lose your pride and use your body for bargaining," she told IRIN/PlusNews. "Being ready to give sex as and when it is needed by the fishermen... it guarantees your survival here on the beach."

Needed? That just bothered me in a place that rarely gets bothered. What these men need is a good beat down and a re-education.

Continuing:

Achieng says she is aware of the risks, but the immediate needs of her family override any concern she may have about contracting HIV.

"You know you can get HIV... but then you remember you have a family that needs to be provided for, and you say, let me die providing for them," she said.

This bothers me because if you look to the right you'll see that I actively loan to men and women in Africa in order to help them avoid being exploited and dependent. It bothers me that when I help a woman to provide for her family that she STILL has to deal with this kind of bullshit.


This needs to stop.

Continuing:

A recent donation of six boats to women's groups in Nyanza by the US Peace Corps shows some of the ways 'jaboya' can be addressed; the women are able to fish for themselves, eliminating dependence on fishermen.

"When you have nothing, those who have something must tell you to bend over backwards for them. Now we have boats and we will no longer be at anybody's mercy," Millicent Onyango, one of the beneficiaries of the US Peace Corps' "No Sex for Fish" project.

While I don't oppose the thinking behind this, I do not think that the larger issue is being addressed. The problem is not that the women have to make deals with fishermen, but the kind of deals they are being made to make. Just as I loan equally to both men and women, I do not totally support programs that lead to gender competition and isolation. I would hope that someone in the Luo communities are working to change the attitudes of the men in this situation so that a proper symbiotic relationship can be formed.

De Niggerbitch

From the people who gave us "black pete".

“She has street cred, she has a ghetto ass and she has a golden throat. Rihanna, the good girl gone bad, is the ultimate niggabitch and displays that gladly"

Dr Goddess deals with these fools:

Once upon a time, yet another international magazine decided to print racist / white supremacist words and imagery regarding a Black artist and then issue an “oops, did we do that?” apology, as if that would be enough to make protestors go away.

If You Don't Submit To It, You Will Be Punished

Police state at it's finest:

When we were finally brought to the final holding area for our arraignment we were informed that if we refused to submit to a retina scan we would likely be held overnight. The retina scan is a voluntary procedure that all 10 of us had already denied earlier that day. According to our lawyers from the National Lawyers Guild – who are heroes – the lieutenant on duty and the judge said that if we continued to refuse the scans we wouldn’t get out that night. With only a few exceptions due to personal commitments, we all stood in solidarity and refused to submit to the procedure. This was around 11 p.m. on Tuesday, roughly 36 hours after our arrest. Several of the women arrested and a majority of the men were going to spend another night in prison to protest the ever expanding security state. In many ways, this final hurdle was the most egregious encroachment on our liberties. The retinal scan is a voluntary procedure, but if you don’t submit to it, you will be punished.

'Cause I know some of you out there think I'm being over the top when I say "police state". There is no way, no how, that this is constitutional. This is akin to discussions of Dejure and Defacto segregation. Although the law is written to be constitutional, it is in fact used in an unconstitutional manner. No way should it be possible to be *forced* to stay in jail for refusing to do something that you are not required to do.

Invented or Illegitimate?

So many days have gone by since Newt Gingrich's commentary that the Palestinians are an "invented people". Though such news has made waves among more independent minded people, most are distracted by the $10,000 "bet" that Romney offered Perry over a claim that Perry made.
Though that is not the intended subject of this post I just want to say how silly all this "news" over 'The Bet" is.

Regular readers of this blog know that I have engaged in "The Wager" in which I challenged another blogger to provide indisputable evidence to contradict my "theory" of race:

I'll write you another $1,000 cheque should you find a German Shephard[sic] that gives birth to a poodle[sic] through natural means of conception.

I made that bet with a 99% confidence that I would not have to pay out. This is common when you KNOW you're right to bet someone a large sum which they have no chance of winning. It is a means of showing that you are certain of what you speak. As a matter of fact I believe that it is the BEST way to end an argument with anyone. If they are unwilling to put their money where their mouth is, then clearly you should be suspect of whatever they are saying.

I'll note that the person the wager was directed to (and various other persons in the "peanut gallery" STILL have not offered the evidence asked for. But back to Gingrich.

Gingrich is absolutely and specifically correct when he said that the Palestinians are an invented people. He is correct because every nationality is, in fact, invented. Every culture, every national boundary, All of it are invented. The American identity is invented. There were no "Americans" before the United States Constitution was drafted. England as we know it did not exist prior to 1707 and prior to that was a bunch of kingdoms.

Latin America is an invention as well. Canada and Canadians are invented people as well.

Even if you look at biblical history it is clear that Israel is and was an invention. Judaism itself is an invented religion taking large portions of Sumerian and Egyptian theology to create itself.

We could go on and on about all the invented people in history but that really wasn't Newt Gingrich's real point. Gingrich, being the white supremacist that he is, was really saying that European white people, as a body, have the right to determine who is a "legitimate people" and who are "illegitimate people". Gingrich is simply offering, in full view, the white supremacist worldview in which people exist only if white supremacists say so and they exist under conditions that white supremacists determine.

Many of the targets of such ideologies internalize these identifications. African-Americans have called themselves Negroes for generations. They have accepted, largely without question, the One Drop Rule, imposed by White Supremacists to specify who is not white and will generally object to those who oppose such an "invention".

Many people scoff at Kwanzaa, saying that it is "made up" as if Christmas and a fat white man who goes up and down chimneys are somehow more "legitimate" an invention. Or that the claimed birth of a person who is the son of a sky god (even though the birthday could not possibly be at the time it is celebrated) is more "legitimate".

The Palestinian leadership for all their objections to Gingrich's commentary behave exactly as Gingrich meant when they "petition" the UN to recognize them and ask for a state. Did the Kosovars ask for independence? No! They took independence and declared themselves a state. Palestinians generally then accept this idea of illegitimacy each and every time they seek outside people to legitimize their claims to national identity.

The same White Supremacists who say that Palestinians are invented (read 'illegitimate") are the same ones who heartily approved of Serbian independence. This should make it clear what Newt Gingrich (and those who agreed with him) meant when he said "invented". Invented was simply a code word for another I word.

Sounds Fair to Me

From Fox News:

On Sunday, an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps senior commander said the regime will not return the drone, and in fact, considered the spy mission of the unmanned vehicle to be an act of war itself.

"We are not the kind of country to allow our enemy to operate freely within our national security and to continue without any response, but regarding the kind of reaction we will show, our enemies will see its effects," said. Gen. Hossein Salami.

I've seen argument against male self-determination in regards to becoming a parent start and end with "once his sperm leaves his body it's no longer his or his decision." I don't agree with that but if we're to take such an argument to it's logical conclusion, the drone that was in Iranian airspace, clearly without their permission, is THE property of the Iranians and as such, they have a right to do whatever they want to with it.

We would expect that the US, if it were confronted with an Iranian drone flying overhead, would also, understandably, take all measures to down it. They would not be returning the property to the Iranians either; at least not in one piece. Furthermore the US would also take such an action as aggression if not a blatant act of war.

Therefore, the proclamations made by Iran ought to surprise no one at all.


Looking further at the report we see the following:

President Obama was given different options by the Pentagon to go into Iran and either retrieve the RQ-170 or destroy it, but he declined because, sources say, he didn't want such a mission to be seen as an act of war.

Bolton said that's not an adequate excuse.

"The Iranians, in saying they would not give it back, said the very act of sending it over Iran was an act of war, which undercuts the Obama administration's assertion that we didn't go into try and destroy the drone after it was captured for fear of the Iranians saying exactly that. ... So while there may be a lot of good reasons not to go in that is not one."

President Obama is quite correct in his analysis. To further exacerbate this situation by invading Iran (which is exactly what "retrieval" means) is a silly idea. Obama is trying to save US face by attempting to deflect the "act of war" angle by NOT making the mistake of making an unmistakable act of aggression.

This writer would like to remind the audience that when China shot down a US plane in it's territory, the same fools said to go get it. They, however knew better than to try to run up in nuclear China and for all their talk, they got nowhere.

Someone tell Bolton that winning the so called "war on terror" does not include invading Iran.

Police employ Predator drone spy planes on home front

Was only a matter of time.

As the unmanned aircraft circled 2 miles overhead the next morning, sophisticated sensors under the nose helped pinpoint the three suspects and showed they were unarmed. Police rushed in and made the first known arrests of U.S. citizens with help from a Predator, the spy drone that has helped revolutionize modern warfare.

But that was just the start. Local police say they have used two unarmed Predators based at Grand Forks Air Force Base to fly at least two dozen surveillance flights since June. The FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration have used Predators for other domestic investigations, officials said.

The money shot:

"Any time you have a tool like that in the hands of law enforcement that makes it easier to do surveillance, they will do more of it,"

The Decline of the American Middle Class

Back in August of this year I discussed the economic reality that is facing the US middle class:

Well right across the Pacific is this country with a middle class population that is as large as the entire population of the United States. Let me say that again: There is a country with a middle class population as large as the entire population of the United States. Oh, and that population is growing. There's another country on the Indian sub-continent with a huge population of bright people who are like this other country is growing it's middle class at a fast rate. If you are a company looking to grow and profit would you be looking to America or looking to these places? Don't think too hard now.

Furthermore:

As discussed earlier the race to the bottom is creeping into the middle class as occupations that require expensive college educations that commanded high 5 and 6 figure salaries can be (and are being) sent to anyone with a fast internet connection and a PC. They will gladly do for $20k, if that much, what you ask $100k for. You do the math.

You'll note from the original entry that I did not quote any primary sources. I had simply looked at the facts on the ground and wrote my analysis. Now let us look at what Alan NasserProfessor Emeritus of Political Economy at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. has to say on the very same subject.

Here he is quoting one of Obama's advisors Jeffrey Immelt:

“Today we go to Brazil, we go to China, we go to India, because that’s where the customers are.” My goodness, this looks like the Leninist thing about the insufficiency of domestic markets to absorb the economy’s output. The US worker is not only becoming decreasingly important as an input to production, (s)he is no longer seen by big capital as the most promising customer, the most robust source of sales revenue.

Here he is quoting a Wall Street [type] executive:

A US-based CEO of one of the world’s largest hedge funds told a writer for The Atlantic that “the hollowing out of the American middle class didn’t really matter.” The CEO described the subject of an executive discussion earlier this year: “… if the transformation of the world economy lifts four people in China and India out of poverty and into the middle class, and meanwhile means one American drops out of the middle class, that’s not such a bad trade.”

Some more from a CEO in the internet business, you know, the ones who trade "free social networking" websites and programs for access to your private information to sell to his (or her) actual customers:

The Chief Financial Officer of a US internet company expresses the same sentiment: “We demand a higher paycheck than the rest of the world. So if you’re going to demand 10 times the paycheck, you need to deliver 10 times the value. It sounds harsh, but maybe people in the middle class need to decide to take a pay cut.”

There it is in black and white people. You, the 99% are overpaid for the work that you do. Remember that these are the type of people who are bankrolling the major candidates for President of the United States as well as those members in congress. Do you think they are backing and paying for candidates who think you are "underpaid"?

And do note that they are not of the opinion that somehow the retail prices for goods and services ought to drop in tandem with the drop in salaries.

Let's look at some more:

Thomas Wilson, CEO of Allstate, is unabashedly frank about the way in which globalization generates an opposition between working-class and business interests: “I can get [workers] anywhere in the world. It is a problem for America, but it is not necessarily a problem for American business… American businesses will adapt.”

So all the big execs know that the American middle class is screwed and they are planning on who they can sell to instead. Of importance, this statement shows that the exec is of the opinion that the US ought to resemble the markets of current "developing" nations where there are wide disparities in income and wealth. Where if you have the connections and money to sell overseas you do so and you exploit your home labour force as much as possible to maximize profits. This is noted in our next quote:

We can call this the Third-Worldization of the Rest, or, if we focus on the wage-earners of the developed countries, the creeping obsolescence of the working class. Workers can of course never be rendered entirely obsolete. What is happening is that we are approaching that condition asymptotically. One might object that there are clear limits to how impoverished working people can be made – after all, workers have to be maintained as work-ready. Upward redistribution can only go so far. But ever-widening inequality is perceived by elites as feasible by virtue of the limitless possibilities of greater indebtedness. Workers can make ends meet by indefinitely mortgaging their future income.

This reminds me of an observation I made about I, Robot:

Specifically I was struck by the displacement of humans in many jobs. I, robot takes place in 2035, when yours truly will be in his 60's. at that time it appears that robots are rubbish collectors, babysitters, cooks, janitors even bartenders. My question was, what happened to the people who usually do these jobs?.

Workers are expendable and certain workers will become more and more expendable. I also wrote:

But I think that the movie presents a very very real spectacle as to how the elite in the US view the masses. People without "ends" are expendable and replaceable and hopefully we can make them just disappear.

Is this not what the executives are saying?

This subject of mortgaging the future is also the theme of the recent movie"In Time". There, instead of paying actual wages which people spend in order to live, they are paid in literal time to live. While a worker in our reality may decide not to work because he doesn't feel like it, he is unlikely to decide not to work if his life literally depended on it. In this dystopia, time is literally money. Why waste time with negotiating wages when you can cut the chase. Sounds extreme and scientifically impossible but the point is clear: How much work will we get out of you for as little as we can get away with? Let's go back to the article:

Non-union workers contracted by Ford to do inspection and repairs at the Dearborn truck plant make $10 an hour without benefits, which is projected to be less than the Chinese average by 2015.

So 2015, a scant four years from now, US autoworkers may well face having the same salary prospects as the Chinese, though with nowhere near the same cost of living. I bet they'll still be voting Republican though.

In the end though there will be an equalization among workers around the world as the ultra rich and those who own resources (usually one and the same) will force down the wages and living standards of those in the so called "developed world" while doing all they can to moderate the rise of income in the developing world. They will do this by moving production to wherever the customers and the cheapest labour is to be found. This is why many states in the US do all they can to give "incentives" for businesses to stay or relocate in said states. And oft times these incentives come right out of the tax revenue needed for cities and towns to run their public works. Many don't see the problem until the companies up and leave and leave a huge hole in the state and or city budget and a whole lot of unemployed people. Welcome to the new America. Not too much unlike the old one. Just that white folks are no longer being protected by their richer counterparts.

Senate Wants the Military to Lock You Up Without Trial

There are still changes swirling around the Senate, but this looks like the basic shape of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act. Someone the government says is “a member of, or part of, al-Qaida or an associated force” can be held in military custody “without trial until the end of the hostilities authorized by the Authorization for Use of Military Force.” Those hostilities are currently scheduled to end the Wednesday after never. The move would shut down criminal trials for terror suspects.

Note that they have put this into a defense appropriations bill so that Senators would have to vote against the appropriations bill in order to kill this little piece of unconstitutionality.

Money shot:

Obama approved of the execution without trial of Anwar al-Awlaki, al-Qaida’s YouTube preacher, based entirely on the unproven assertion that Awlaki was dangerous. Awlaki was an American citizen. So Obama thinks he has the right to kill Americans the government says are terrorists, but he doesn’t want the military to lock them up forever without trial. OK then

Early Results in Egypt Show a Mandate for Islamists

This from the same NY Times that hosted a thoughtless piece of drivel talking about how Al-Qaeda had "lost".

The party formed by the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s mainstream Islamist group, appeared to have taken about 40 percent of the vote, as expected. But a big surprise was the strong showing of ultraconservative Islamists, called Salafis, many of whom see most popular entertainment as sinful and reject women’s participation in voting or public life.

Analysts in the state-run news media said early returns indicated that Salafi groups could take as much as a quarter of the vote, giving the two groups of Islamists combined control of nearly 65 percent of the parliamentary seats.

And remember that the entire point of backing Mubarak in Egypt was to keep parties like the Muslim Brotherhood from power. Also remember that one of the platforms of Al-Qaeda is the removal of "leadership" that is "non-Islamic" and who act as fronts for the "liberal west".

Total failure. Total.

Public Sector Meltdown Hits Black Women the Hardest

So says the article in Ms. Magazine Blog But of course one has to pay attention to the details:

That means, naturally, that black women are feeling public-sector cuts the most. Twenty-three percent of employed African American women work in the public sector, compared to 19.8 percent of employed white women, 18 percent of employed black men and 14.2 percent of employed white men.

You'll note the reference to "employed" women and "employed" men. Of course the problem here is that Black men in general suffer from high rates of unemployment. Higher than that of Black women.

From Crains:

“Black women are a majority [53.4%] of the black workforce, head a majority [52.8%] of black families with children, and were more economically vulnerable even before the recession started,” according to the report.

From Money Magazine:

Overall, black men have it the worst, with joblessness at a staggeringly high 19.1%, compared to 14.5% for black women.

That's the national number.

From the US Department of Labor:

Blacks are the only racial or ethnic group where women represent a larger share of the employed than do men — more than half (54.3 percent) of employed blacks in 2010 were women, compared to 46.3 percent among employed whites. Employed black women still earn less than employed black men.

In NY State the unemployment rate of blacks generally (2010) is 40.8% divided into 17.3 for black males (error margin between 15 and 19 percent) and 12 % (error margin 10=13 percent). No that does not equal 40% so lets take those numbers at the high end of the error margin for both groups. So 1 in 4 black males 16 and over in NY state as of 2010 were unemployed and 1 in 7 (rounding down) black women in NYS in a similar situation.

This is not to belittle the situation that confronts black women but the numbers do speak for themselves. It may be harder out there for them now, but the numbers are not and have never reached what black men have faced and are facing. I'm glad Ms. is concerned with getting women back to work but I'd like for people to be concerned with getting black men into work.

Teach by Example

Egyptian police crack down. From the AP:

Witnesses said the violence began when riot police dismantled a small tent camp set up to commemorate protesters killed in the uprising and attacked around 200 peaceful demonstrators who had camped out in the square overnight....

Police were firing rubber bullets, tear gas and beating protesters with batons to clear the area on Saturday, said Sahar Abdel-Mohsen, an engineer who joined in the protest after a call went out on Twitter telling people to come down to Tahrir...

While the military tolerates daytime demonstrations in the central square, a symbol of the country's Jan. 25-Feb. 11 uprising, it claims long-term occupation paralyzes the city.

Or was that New York City or Oakland or.....

There Is No One To Vote For

As a long time non-voter I have long since come to understand the true nature of the political beast that is the US political scene that the occupy people are facing. A lot of people assume that I don't vote because I am either apathetic, "given up" or some other scripted response taught to them by someone or some organization(I won't even go into the "slavery" angle). Every now and then some who understand as I understand come out and speak on who this system works for. Sometimes it's a foreign government official that declares that he or she has "access" regardless of who's in office. Sometimes it's the CEO of some company that declares the he too doesn't vote because his interests are always being looked after regardless of who or what party is in office. Today we find yet another person reaching this realization:

But what I sensed in New York was anger not only at this economic problem, but the fact that the political system is broken. There is no one to vote for as an alternative to pro-bank candidates. So what began as anger has become a gathering awareness that Obama was simply fooling voters instead of leading the change he promised. That’s what politicians do, of course. But people hoped that he might be different. That was the gullibility he played on. He has turned into the nightmare they thought they were voting against.

There is no one to vote for. Exactly. When I size up the candidates I understand that in the great scheme of things the ones who would best represent my interests (and yours actually) will never make it past the primaries. Even the so called "establishment liberals" who bash Republicans at every turn will marginalize true change agent candidates by claiming they are 'unelectable". They will turn from arguments that you should "be heard" to telling you what you should be saying.

For example we have Cynthia McKinney, a black woman with a strong anti-war, anti-corporate platform. During the last presidential election the Black "Left" cognoscenti up and declared that supporting McKinney was a waste of time and votes and that voting for Obama was the right thing to do. So in essence the so called talented 10th spent their efforts in the service of pro-wall Street and pro-war candidates because they wanted to make history rather than stick to their principles. Principles which later showed themselves to be toilet paper thin as they supported, among other things, NATO regime change in Libya.

You'd think these cognoscenti would have encouraged black voters to, you know, vote their conscience or their principles, you know those things that they carp about every Jan 16th or other opportune moments to mention Dr. King and his dream. Oh well.

I have long said that it will not be until the proverbial feces hits the fan that people will realize that they are being had. They are being had slowly but surely. The general population is under the impression that unless something like a Nazi takeover happens that everything is OK. It is not and it will not go that way. The police state is everywhere and visible to everyone paying attention. One only need to move out of the little "permitted behavior" and "permitted discussion" zone to find out. The occupy break ups by various city governments shows that "we" are about as free as the Egyptian was in Tahir square. The differences are simply that there's more money here than there and cultural differences. Make no mistake though as politics go, both governments would do anything to maintain and protect itself from the people. And let us be clear, the protests are thus far non-violent on the part of the protestors, Just imagine what would happen if the protestors decided to do what the Libyans did, or what the Syrians are doing. With what we have seen thus far in NYC and Oakland do you now honestly think that mass beating and actual shootings would not happen here if the protestors actually resisted the police?

Where are the elected officials, supposedly the representatives of "the people"? Have you seen them with the people? Have you seen them have press conferences condemning the behavior of the authorities? Have you seen them point out the constitutional problems with the police actions? No. The ones who have spoken out have said that the protestors should "go home". That they "have been heard" and now "business needs to return to normal". As if they really do not get it.

So when people ask silly ass questions about "what candidate are they supporting" or "what candidate are they fielding" I know they simply do not understand what is going on. There is no one to vote for and when someone with the credentials show up the Liberal cognoscenti do whatever they can to not support them.

Game recognize game.

Sister Citizen Hits Cain Where it Hurts

Of late I've not found myself on the same page as Dr. Harris-Perry. This being especially true in her recent remarks in regards to Cornel West and her commentary in regards to the racism of white liberals with respect to Obama. But fair is fair and her latest Sister Citizen piece is all the way spot on.

Neither Thomas nor Cain was ever in any imminent danger of torture or murder, both of which are fundamental aspects of lynching. Neither man was attacked by a mob acting outside the normal structures of society and government; the inquiries into both men’s actions have followed standard media, employment and governmental practices. And while television and the Internet helped promulgate their stories, there was nothing particularly technological about their experiences. I suspect that what Cain and Thomas meant was that they were the victims of a symbolic lynching, not a high-tech one.

Kaboom. Couldn't have said it better myself.

Black Theology

Theology. According to the Webster dictionary theology is:

the study of religious faith, practice, and experience; the study of God and of God's relation to the world

According to the NY Times Africans AKA "black people" did not have "theology until 1836 when it was invented at Union Theological Seminary in NY.

The school, where the eminent theologian Reinhold Niebuhr taught, is also known as the birthplace of black theology. James H. Cone, a foremost scholar in that tradition, is still on the faculty.

I cannot make this stuff up.

Clearly then the staff of the NY Times among others are of the opinion that African traditional religions, which existed prior to 1836, simply do not exist. The Yoruba, Ashanti etc were just having idle chatter when they conceived of, discussed and handed down religious traditions to their descendants. The Kikuyu weren't facing Mt. Kenya for any particular reason at all. They apparently just enjoyed the view.

The further arrogance of this statement is that it also presupposes that somehow the trade in African bodies somehow managed to wipe out traditional religious thinking among those being bought and sold.

It would have been simple for the editors of the NY Times to have stuck "American" before "black" and "Christian" before "theology". That would have made the statement accurate and not totally dismissive of the theologies that existed in African-America prior to 1836.

Those "Unbridgable" Rights

Since it seems that unless I'm a white man or woman writing for an establishment type newspaper or blog, what I say amounts to a hill of so many beans (yes I'm somewhat bitter), let me go and quote somebody else in regards to those rights that "we" supposedly have in the US.

Here's Dave Lindorff on The Penn State situation:

And yet there are all kinds of laws that abridge freedom of speech and the right peaceably to assemble, as well as the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

We’ve all been witness lately to how municipal authorities, no doubt under pressure from the bankers and from the central government’s police and political authorities, have been “abridging,” with the aid of police wielding clubs, pepper spray and tear gas canisters, the supposed freedom of occupy movement activists to peaceably assemble.

This morning upon hearing the news of the removal of the #occupy protestors including the destruction of their property, I reminded the twitterverse as to the laws governing the citizens rights to peaceably assemble:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

And importantly the 14th Amendment which is clear about what the states can and cannot do in regards to the rights of citizens:

1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

In regards to due process, even the severely diluted form that it currently has, has been affirmed by court order allowing the #occupy protestors to remain. I won't engage in my position that the "life, liberty and property are in regards to criminal or civil prosecution and not in regards to the actual rights of citizens.

It's pretty sad when I have to read citizens writings about how the #occupy protestors have to act "legally" as if peacefully assembling isn't already legal. Furthermore claims of sanitation and crime are no legal grounds to abridge the rights of protestors. Sanitation issues can be negotiated with those peacefully assembled to provide public safety while recognizing the assembly rights.

Similarly if crimes are being committed in the #occupy protests then the state has a right and obligation to find those responsible and prosecute them. To report as if the actual protestors are criminals or creating crime is utter bullshit. Similarly claiming that reports of gunfire are grounds to evict #occupy protestors is bullshit as well. Shootings happen outside of all manner of locations including parks, nightclubs etc. Shall we shut them all down as well? I mean people get raped in Central Park. Shall we shut it down and deny people access to the park?

None of this is totally surprising given that a poll taken a couple of years ago found that a good number of Americans are of the bizarre opinion that they have "too many rights".

Clinton and Cain

Alexander Cockburn:

A luxury suite! One of Bill’s targets, when he was governor of Arkansas, would have been lucky to get a ride home in the troop car, after a brisk session in the governor’s office, with bruises on her arms when she resisted the guiding hand. Who says this isn’t the land of progress? Seventy years ago a black man making the sort of advances of which Cain is accused tended to end up swinging from the branch of a tree, not running for president with a hefty quotient of Americans saying they don’t give a toss about the harassment charges.

Gunfire Before Liberia Election

From the NY Times

MONROVIA, Liberia — Hundreds of protesters clashed with the police and United Nations peacekeepers here in the Liberian capital on Monday afternoon, leaving at least one person dead the day before a presidential runoff that the opposition has vowed to boycott.

Not a good sign at all. I suppose they still have not learned from that long brutal war.

Paul Craig Roberts on Western Democracy

Writing in Counterpunch

In America the only thing that can ruin a politician is his interest in sex. A politician, for example, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Barack Obama, cannot be ruined by violating United States and international law or by treating the US Constitution as a “mere scrap of paper.” Bush and Cheney can take America to wars based entirely on lies and orchestrated deceptions. They can commit war crimes, murdering large numbers of civilians in the cause of “the war on terror,” itself a hoax. They can violate US and international laws against torture simply “because the president said so.” They can throw away habeas corpus, the constitutional requirement that a person cannot be imprisoned without evidence presented to a court. They can deny the right to an attorney. They can violate the law and spy on Americans without obtaining warrants. They can send due process to hell. In fact, they can do whatever they want just like Hitler’s Gestapo and Stalin’s secret police. But if they show undue interest in a woman or proposition a woman, they are dead meat.

Anthony Weiner. Nuff said.

Jack Abramoff Puts The US Government on Blast

Think about it.He said that he had 100 congress members in his pocket. This is ONE lobbyist. Think of the implications of this when you consider the number of lobbyists in DC.


Remember that candidate Obama made the claim that he would not be held sway by special interests. Now consider just how much money is coming his way. Now watch Abramoff explain how these things go and think carefully as to whether Obama meant what he said or is actually living what he said.

If after watching this video you do not understand exactly how the government is run, why we have bullshit laws on the books and people at #occupy protests being arrested on bullshit charges in direct violation of their rights to peacefully assemble and seek redress, then you really are not all that bright.

Herman Cain on China

t China was "trying to develop nuclear capability .… "

LA Times

Just wow.

Re: Violent Islamism Has Failed

Op Ed contributor Richard Dearlove writing in the NY Times suggests that violent Islamism has failed:

Yet what is surprising 10 years on is the relative failure of violent Islamism to make a more lasting political impact. Few of us would have predicted this failure at the time.

Al Qaeda began with the idea of purging Saudi Arabia of “infidels”; it then came up with a complex political model of a caliphate. What we are seeing instead — and I stress that my comments are personal — is a resurgence of moderate Islam and moderate Islamist parties. These groups are now apparently arguing for the very democratic values and individual rights that Al Qaeda was so opposed to. This can be seen in what is happening today in Tunisia, in Egypt, in the sort of things that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is saying and doing.

Dearlove's position requires that one view failure as a total failure to get everything one wants. If that were the case then any negotiated settlement between any parties would be "failure" for all parties involved. No one looks at a negotiated settlement like that.

Furthermore; Dearlove's position also requires us to ignore history of Islam as it spread throughout regions such as North Africa, etc. Muslims have never been stupid. Contrary to what is generally said by some Muslims, The Prophet had no problem with the use of violence and nor did his followers. However; violence was not the preferred tactic of Muslims in their expansion but it was also never "off the table" and that has always been the case. If they were able to get a foothold somewhere by other means they did so. Knowing this we should look at the actual stated issues that Al-Qaeda claims to have.

Al-Qaeda had a deep hatred of secular governments that acted as puppets of the US and Israel. They had a deep hatred of governments that they saw as oppressing the rights of "righteous" Muslims. Yes, they had ideas of re-establishing Caliphates, but these other issues were just as important.

What has happened since 9-11? Among many things we have seen a very aggressive push by the Palestinians to receive recognition in the UN over the usual objections of the US and Israel. We have seen the "Arab Street" previously easily brushed aside, topple US aligned leadership in a number of countries. We have seen so called "moderate" Islamists make it into government whereas before everything was done to keep them out. We see the Muslim Brotherhood, previously repressed taking seats in new governments. In other words, the Arab world in general has become that much more assertive towards the US than any time prior to 9-11 or at the oil embargo.

At the same time, as Bin Laden said, the US has been shown to not really care about The Law(tm) as they claim to be. the US has been shown and documented using torture or outsourcing it. Stuff that has been happening for a long time but was not visible to the US or world population until after 9-11. The US and The West(tm) has been shown to be in cahoots with various dictators as evidenced by it's unwillingness to condemn Mubarak or the leadership of Bahrain.

Indeed just like the violence in various cities in the US made space for and pushed the powers that be to address the "more moderate" elements of the civil rights movement, so to did the violence of Al-Qaeda create a space where the relatively moderate Islamist groups had to be dealt with. This is almost always how violence works in such conflicts. In politics the most radical person is labelled the "extremist", the less radical that person is, the less room the people who are moderate have to move. But when that radical person is way out there the middle ground opens up quite a bit.


In Africa Muslims got their place by way of compromise. Why not let them live peacefully over there, rather than risk constant armed conflict? As the old Yoruba saying goes (paraphrased): Woe to the man who disturbs the praying Muslim.

So no, Al- Qaeda failed at setting up a caliphate. But yes, they did get some of what they wanted. Sounds like a "compromise" to me.

US Admits to "Setting the Course" in Libya

Every now and then the empire gets arrogant and blatantly displays itself to the people. It's usually quickly done, covered up and those not paying attention miss it. But it happens. Today we got a taste of it. Roger Cohen writing his latest opinion piece for the NY Times reveals the real NATO plan:

When I tweeted a sincere “Bravo Obama” message the other day, congratulating the president on “leading from behind” in Libya, it took only minutes for the U.S. ambassador to NATO to tweet back a sharp retort.

“That’s not leading from behind,” Ivo Daalder wrote. “When you set the course, provide critical enablers and succeed, it’s plain leading.”

Like Police Commissioner Ray Kelly's "accidental" commentary about the NYPD's ability (and assumed new authority) to shoot down commercial aircraft this statement ought not be taken as braggadious. This fellow meant exactly what he said. The US "set the course. and provided "critical enablers".

Since we know exactly what "the course" was, then what this amounts to is an admission that NATO was purposely engaged in regime change with the blessing of the UN. NATO essentially declared war on the legitimate government of Libya (a UN member state), "enabled" and "provided" for a civil war against the government of Libya.

And given that this person is making such claims I will direct the reader's attention to my discussion of the constitutionality of said war:

What part of "coordinates, participates or accompany" does the White House not understand? What part of "Nothing in this joint resolution shall be construed as granting authority to the President with respect to the introduction of United States Armed Forces into hostilities or into hostilities or into situations wherein involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances which authority he would not have had in the absence of this resolution" does the executive not understand?