George Carlin in 2004
on
America's owners

A few years before our recent meltdown, George Carlin had 3 minutes of monologue that sounds like he wrote it in 2009---- after Bush started the trillion dollar bailouts, followed immediately by Obama's bailouts.  Both parties have been increasingly corrupted by K Street lobbyists, Wall Street and a very small number of global corporations.  When they all lost on their spurious financial transactions that created the bubble, they got the government to bail them out.

Today the stock market is at record highs, but Americans still experience a lot unemployment and underemployment and we have $16 trillion in debt that may not be surmountable; so who is making all this money in the market? Maybe the banks and corporations that were bailed out and went right back to making billions, while most of America is still in the trenches? 

While our plutocrats claim to be free market capitalists, nothing could be further from the truth. No real capitalists, whether a car company, bank, insurance company or mortgage lender would accept a hand out for abject failure.  

But they are not really capitalists anymore. Most were, once. And then they realized that the more lobbyists they hired, the more they could influence (such a polite word for it) the politicians to "deregulate" banking and business.  They had the SEC turn a blind eye and had the Fed in their pocket for when the bill came due, to give them our tax dollars, and as time went on, competitive, free market capitalism become an unnecessary hindrance.  Better to make bigger and bigger bets, because the 99%, without their consent, will bail you out with their children's future. As Carlin says, we have no choice. It's an illusion. The 99% could not have stopped the bailouts of this historic failure because Bush, followed by Obama, controlled our money and could not print it fast enough and give it to the very people who imploded the economy; and who, by the dumbest of luck, make mighty fine contributions to both parties, because greed and avarice play no favorites.  

It's odd how the these alleged capitalists gladly take billions in handouts, but think universal health care, feeding the poor and other basic social security for the elderly and for the unfortunate is going to bankrupt us and turn us into a socialist state. Perhaps they worry that there will be less bailout money available to them the next time they tank the economy.  They are nothing, if not pragmatic. Milton Friedman and the Chicago School of Economics did not turn out fools. Look at the great job Milt did in Chile with his buddy Pinochet. 

America is owned by fewer and fewer of it's citizens all the time.  And if you have ever read a bit of history, then you know what happens when wealth disparity becomes too great, and the money becomes worthless. Empires collapse. Those at the top, however, can hop in their G5 and choose to live in any one of their marvelous homes around the globe, where it is a little more comfortable, at least until the dust settles. 

David Stockman's new books lays it all out very clearly.

The Great Deformation

The Corruption of Capitalism in America

http://www.amazon.com/Great-Deformation-Corruption-Capitalism-America/dp/1586489127/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1365653817&sr=1-1&keywords=david+stockman

Jon Stewart 

Some humor to show that America needs some work in weeding out the first century thinkers in our midst. From homophobes to the science deniers, its time for those capable of rational thought to move the unlettered, ignorant and stone age crowd back into their caves so that history may progress.  The United States is not Iran.  We are a secular democracy in spite of the Tea Party, George Bush, Ann Coulter and the other purveyors of revisionist history whose goal is nothing less than to undo our history of progress.  We need to demolish the tyranny of those who pervert religion, free enterprise, The Bill of Rights and just about everything else that makes our country free. 

Mission Accomplished 

Not to beat a dead horse, but with the debt the U.S. is in, about $16 trillion dollars, everyone needs to remember where a good amount is from:  the Bush War on Terror. While the Right blames Obama for many things, it is good to remember 8 years of Bush and his contribution to our debt, our standing in the world and the death of thousands of American soldiers in a war the country was lied into.

from Slate March 28,2013  

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/03/28/cost_of_iraq_linda_bilmes_says_iraq_and_afghanistan_wars_could_cost_6_trillion.html

Kennedy School professor Linda Bilmes finds that the all-in costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will measure in the $4 trillion to $6 trillion range when all is said and done. But that's not the most terrifying element of her survey of the fiscal impact of the "war on terror" and related undertakings. What should really strike fear into your heart is her finding that "the largest portion of that bill is yet to be paid."

That's because equipment lost or destroyed in the wars is going to have to be replaced, interest on the money borrowed to finance the wars is going to have to be paid, and most of all because health care and disability benefits are going to have to be paid well out into the future. The wars not only lead to a lot of people being wounded, but inspired Congress to make the welfare state for veterans substantially more generous than it had previously been. In addition, the practice of battlefield medicine has improved substantially which means we ended up with an unusually high share of wounded soldiers to dead ones by historical standards.

It's a great illustration of the Norman Angell point that starting wars is a bad idea. What conceivable "oil weapon" could be wielded against the U.S. economy due to lack of military hegemony in the Persian Gulf that would approach that cost?
_______________________________________________________________

Predictions that didn't exactly come true

"The likely economic effects [of a war in Iraq] would be relatively small.... Under every plausible scenario, the negative effect will be quite small relative to the economic benefits."
Lawrence Lindsey
White House economic adviser
September 16, 2002 


"It is unimaginable that the United States would have to contribute hundreds of billions of dollars and highly unlikely that we would have to contribute even tens of billions of dollars." 
Kenneth Pollack
former director for Persian Gulf affairs
National Security Council
September 2002 


"The costs of any intervention would be very small." 
Glenn Hubbard
White House economic adviser
October 4, 2002 


"Iraq has tremendous resources that belong to the Iraqi people. And so there are a variety of means that Iraq has to be able to shoulder much of the burden for their own reconstruction."
Ari Fleischer
White House press secretary
February 18, 2003 


"When it comes to reconstruction, before we turn to the American taxpayer, we will turn first to the resources of the Iraqi government and the international community." 
Donald Rumsfeld
Secretary of Defense
March 27, 2003 


"There is a lot of money to pay for this that doesn't have to be US taxpayer money, and it starts with the assets of the Iraqi people. We are talking about a country that can really finance its own reconstruction and relatively soon." 
Paul Wolfowitz
Deputy Secretary of Defense
testifying before the defense subcommittee
of the House Appropriations Committee
March 27, 2003 


"The United States is very committed to helping Iraq recover from the conflict, but Iraq will not require sustained aid." 
Mitchell Daniels, director
White House Office of Management and Budget
April 21, 2003 


"The allies [have contributed] $14 billion in direct aid." 
Dick Cheney
vice presidential debate with
Democratic candidate John Edwards
October 5, 2004 
Actually, only $13 billion was pledged, and on the date Cheney spoke only $1 billion had arrived. As of October 28, 2007, the National Priorities Project estimated that the share of Iraq War costs that had been borne by American taxpayers exceeded $463 billion. --C.C.&V.N.

Arwa Damon and the War in Iraq

Arwa Damon is one of those reporters you can trust.  She has been in Iraq for 10 years. Last week I posted about the aftermath of the George Bush's misguided war that he lied his way into with little knowledge of the country, it's history and warring factions.  Here is an excerpt from today's article on CNN.com and the link to the article.

Unlike a lot of presidential decisions which take years or decades for history to judge the merits of, Bush's war was clearly a fiasco almost from the start. The verdict is already in; it has been in from about mid-way through the war. It's no wonder he has been a ghost in the public arena since he left office.  He  was an embarrassment to the U.S. from the start of his presidency and will be in the future.  One has to wonder how such a devout Christian who flaunted his faith reconciles the death of so many brave U.S. soldiers, innocent Iraqi civilians and national wealth with the facts.

The toppling of the statue in a Baghdad square in April 2003 should have ushered in a vibrant Iraq as the Bush administration promised. Instead, it stands as the pivotal point of lost opportunity. The United States, with no post-war plan, was helpless to prevent the country from falling into chaos.

Devastating mistakes by the U.S. administration in Iraq -- such as disbanding the Iraqi army and the de-Baathification campaign -- alienated a sizable chunk of the population and lay the groundwork for the Sunni insurgency. Shia militias emerged and thrived.

Ten years on, the war has left more than 134,000 Iraqis and 4,800 Americans dead and cost hundreds of billions of dollars. It has left in its wake a nation whose government tends to look to the east -- meaning Iran -- a state the United States cannot rely upon as an ally.

Iraq has been through so much over the last 10 years: Everything that every resident knew to be normal was crushed, tearing down the very fabric, the very essence of society.

Speaking of fiasco's, here is a great book about the war.

               Fiasco Amazon Link

Origins of Anti-Semitism

The Origins of Anti-Semitism

&

The New Pope

As with any of my previous blog posts, when discussing the sordid history of the institution of the Catholic Church, I mean no offense to the the millions of decent, faithful Catholics throughout history and worldwide. It is rather the leaders of this church that are the subject matter of my posts. As this posts shows, it is not the rank and file Catholics that history needs to blame.  Rather, it's the leaders who created anti-semitism  and inculcated this hatred in the minds of their uneducated followers beginning in the 3rd century, and who perpetrated all the church's other crimes, who are guilty. 

The recent election of the new pope was interesting to see for many reasons, but one thing that struck me in virtually every broadcast I saw, the reporters were all smiles.  One would think that they were covering a happy, festive event.  Most of those interviewed on the news programs were either reporters on church matters, most of whom are simply apologists for the church, or Catholics who were delighted to have a new pope, which is understandable; nor is their excitement in any way something I take issue with. 

What I do take issue with is the media neglecting to mention the long history of the church. Very little commentary on that.  Sure, when some aspect of the child sexual abuse scandal is in the news cycle, the media do their job. But other than these moments, it's a different story.  

Keep in mind that only recently, March 12, 2002, did the recently retired pope get around to apologizing for the church's long criminal history, including:  The Crusades, The Inquisition, the forced conversion of indigenous peoples, the African slave trade, the admission Galileo was right, injustice toward women, the rape and torture of orphans and children and their silence during the Holocaust. These are not some anti-Catholic accusations. This is the apology of Pope Ratzinger trying to atone, centuries too late in most cases, for the church's admitted crimes.  

So it is very interesting how the media can selectively choose to report on church matters. I didn't see one church official or apologist asked how the sex scandal was going, or about the millions of church funds acquired from the days of Mussolini, or their opinion on why the Catholic church still does not allow condom use while millions in sub Sahara Africa die of AIDS.

The last pope said the condom issue was still being given great thought. Interesting he had no sense of urgency while people are dying.(see other posts on condoms, the church and other church issues).

With a new pope, wouldn't a question or discussion about the sex scandal or condoms use be a legitimate area of inquiry?  Simply asking if the church would reverse this policy in order to save lives would be a fair, objective non judgemental question, but I did not see it asked. 

For commentary on the the popes apology, see this video of the late Christopher Hitchen's.

As the new pope was being coronated, I was also thinking about anti-Semites and happened to come across an interesting website.  The link included here is from the writings of a former Catholic priest. When you look at how early anti-semitism began, you begin to understand how it lingers to the present day among even the educated class. For a quick graphic of this history, please see the charts below. 

Writings of a former Catholic Priest

Secular Humanists

Antidotes for American Unreason

Real American History

Here are two books from the last 10 years by a non-revisionist who writes about the facts of American history.  The strength of Jacoby's writing lies in pointing out the level of unreason and the anti-intellectualism that has always paralleled American strengths. 

Unafraid of pointing fingers, she singles out mass media and the resurgence of fundamentalist religion as the primary vectors of anti-intellectualism, while also having harsh words for pseudoscientists.  Pullishers Weekly. 

During the last election cycle it was difficult not to notice the extent of the extreme rights position on virtually every issue. Certainly conservatism is nothing new. Things go in cycles. But after 8 years of Bush and the last 2 presidential elections, both contests that brought out the worst in the far right, as they saw power slipping from their hands, it is refreshing to reread Susan Jacoby.

To listen to Rick Santorum, Paul Ryan, Newt Gingrich and the even wackier Tea Party folks, you would have thought that religion was the foundation of American democracy; that science was a threat to God himself, that creationism was a valid explanation for biology; that contraception was immoral and too many other things to believe that anyone believes in the 21st century.

Previous books such as Richard Hofstradters, Anti-Intellecutualism in American Life (1963) and Alan Bloom's Closing of the American Mind (1987) are similar to Jacoby's, but particulary in the last decade, all these books need to be read or reread if we are to keep the extreme right from power.

The main reason that such anti-intellectual pockets still exist in America is the sad fact that our educational system is far behind many other countries, the South and parts of the West being prime examples. And when you combine a lack of education with the resurgent fundamentalism of the Christian right, what you get is an uninformed mass of people who vote for George Bush, Marco Rubio, Paul Ryan, to name a few. And George Bush said on more than one occasion that God told him to go to war with Iraq.

Recall Marco Rubio only a few months ago claiming that he didn't know the age of the Earth. I believe his words were, it was a great mystery. Perhaps for someone who missed 8th grade Earth science. This, from a man whose candidate just lost the presidency and whose party has finally lost it's grip on the electorate.  His quick back tracking and qualification shortly after this statement did not show a man who researched the issue and made an informed correction.

Rather the outcry was so great, he had no choice but to issue an equally absurd explanation.  We are talking about a basic fact of provable science. The Earth is 4.5 billion year old. No educated person disputes this, and no religious person who has any faith in God disputes this. Only the truly uneducated and the politicians who pander to their ignorance do. And as more and more Americans become educated, these men will be forced to actually conceive real ideas.

And in the truth is stranger than fiction category, Rubio and Ryan, after the loss of the presidency, want to get together and re-create their party for modern times, given how they see the tide turning against their party.

Rubio was someone who was still pandering to his uneducated base but at this point in the game didn't get away with it.  Thankfully, neither did the other GOP men who pontificated on how contraception was unnecessary because, quoting 12th century myths, a women's body could shut down and therefore not become impregnated as a result of rape. Mr. Santorum famously said that rape, however awful, still produced a human life and that even under the circumstances this was a gift from God.

In my an older post I asked Mr. Santorum if his wife or daughter received such a gift, what his thoughts would be.

So, in 2013, we have evidence of not just average citizens who may not have the benefit of higher education clinging to such notions, we have men in elected office speaking like fools.  And again, with no offense to those unable to receive an education, this is not a mind set that should exist in this century.

People like Jacoby revisit history, they educate our young people, they do not revise history.

America is free because Jefferson and Adams gave us religious liberty, among many others,  and kept God out of the bible. To put God in the bible would be to create a theocracy, which was a nightmare that took centuries for most nations to escape. Hence their wisdom. The alternative is Iran.

Of all the nations or religions who disbelieve in evolution, guess which groups are at the bottom: Muslims and Fundamentalist Christians and Americans (of any or no faith).

Nor do I think Jefferson would condemn evolution and promote the teaching of creationism.

We still have a long way to go in America to educate our citizens, all of them, and to put the party of ignorance and religious fanaticism to rest. If you don't agree, look at the charts below.

America and American's can do better than Bush, Santorum and MItt. Education is the key.


Certainly many things are matter of opinion. Many are not. Of the latter, evolution, gravity, the Earth rotates around the Sun,the speed of light 186K miles per second, 2 and 2 is 4 and so on........

The War in Iraq and its Aftermath

What happens when people with no knowledge of history run a nation

.......and start wars

"They hate us for our freedom"

How many times after September 11, 2001 did Bush and other conservatives, who possess
frighteningly little knowledge of history, state this ridiculous idea?  Over and over this was given as the reason for 9/11 and as the casus belli for the Iraq war. One doesn't have to even discuss the mythical WMD's or the absurd notion that Bin Laden and Saddam were working together.  Bin Laden was a religious fanatic who considered Saddam an apostate.

Aside from those two falsehoods, this idea that many nations of the Middle East hate America (and the West) for it's freedoms was Bush's weakest justification for the war.  And this one didn't require the passage of time for history to prove wrong.  Even at the time, if Bush, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and the other NeoCons had even a superficial knowledge of the history of the region, or knew the difference between Shia and Sunni Muslims, they might have pursued a more productive path; maybe avoided war altogether. 

Since the early 1900's and particularly after the discovery of oil and the fall of the Ottoman Empire after WW I, the Western world has been in the region militarily, making and breaking dictators, drawing borders, creating "mandates" and doing what powerful nations do: imperialize. This is not moralizing, it is just how history just works.  But that is not the point here and it would be futile to argue that powerful states should never exert their power over weaker ones. International relations is rather Darwinian in the way it has always worked.

So whatever the moral implications of imperialism, if a nation chooses exert it's power, start wars, especially pre-emptive wars as in Iraq, it could be argued that learning some basic history about the nation you are attacking would be a first step.  Even ruthless regimes throughout history have conquered others by knowing some detail about their opponent and not going off blindly, if for no other reason than not to loose. And Bush lost the war. He didn't do his homework and ignored those who tried to educate him on the region. And Mission Accomplished was on illusion that day on the aircraft carrier many years ago and it is today.  The was no victory in this war.

Hubris is word often associated with the Bush years. Perhaps it's hard not to exhibit a great deal of hubris at the helm of the worlds lone superpower. But that does not excuse ignoring the most basic facts before engaging in war, of any magnitude, and sending thousands of brave, all volunteer service men and women to die for their country. Was it Bush's guilty conscience that forbade photographing U.S. soldiers caskets upon their return home?

By not knowing the history of the Middle East and the difference between the warring sects within Islam, the Iraq war was destined to, and did, devolve into tribal, ethnic and religious civil war. It is still an unstable state with no real democracy. So what was accomplished? We did build the largest and most expensive U.S. embassy in the world there, costing almost a billion dollars; an interesting thing given how we officially withdrew our troops and are letting the country chart its own course toward freedom.   If the oil reserves did not exist in Iraq, would we have built an embassy of that magnitude there? Or, more to the current point, gone to war there? This embassy gets very little press, but its easy to read about.

In the case of the Middle East, oil has bee the driving force in post WW I Western hegemony, not to mention the private sector, in this case Christian institutions, trying to proselytise and convert Muslims. It is difficult enough to impose borders and leaders on other nations. It's even more difficult when one is not dealing so much with nations, but rather loosely defined areas that are  tribally, ethnically or religiously aligned. And, when you install dictators in these newly created "states", and then try to westernize the masses and impose a totally foreign faith, what you get is what there is today: unstable nations, ranging from fanatic theocracies such as modern Iran, to dictatorships as in Syria, Egypt, Lebanon and elsewhere.

There is not a democracy in sight in the region. And whether you look at the theocracies or dictatorships, they are all in possession of massive military hardware, much of which the West sold to many of these nations during the brief times they were our allies.

*Saddam was our fried when Iraq fought Iran and we ignored his human rights abuses

*Bin Laden was our friend when he fought Russia in Afghanistan

*Iran was our friend when the Shah was our dictator of choice and enforced control with the SAVAK.

*Egypt, under Nasser, was an oppressive state that for decades we gave a couple billion        dollars per year to, to buy influence, with little comment about how he treated his people

*Saudi Arabia, a country with NO penal code, which beheads people, we have supported for decades as well, even going to war for them in Gulf War I.  Yet another state that no U.S. politician will condemn for their human rights abuses.

Returning to Bush and Co. not knowing even basic world history before starting a massive invasion of a country which posed no direct threat to the U.S., an article in Slate covers this well and briefly.  See excerpt below and link to the entire article.

Before WWI, the countries we now know as Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Turkey did not exist. They were all part of the Ottoman Empire, and had been for 500 years. As the Ottoman Empire collapsed in the face of war, the British and French made plans to weave the territories into their own empires. Country names were coined, boundaries were drawn, tribal leaders were anointed, co-opted, or traded promises for their obeisance. As it turned out, though, the war exhausted the British and French—their treasuries and their people’s patience—and over the subsequent two decades, their empires collapsed. But the borderlines they drew in the Middle East survived. These lines bore no resemblance to the natural, historic borders between tribes and sectarian groups; often they divided the members of a group from one another, or imposed the rule of minorities over majorities. The western-installed rulers of these artificial states survived too, and one of their main tasks was to oppress the groups, or buy them off, or play them against one another, in order to sustain their own rule.

Full Article:

Hubris and Ignorance, Inc.  (my title)

Even at the time, most well informed citizens in the U.S. and elsewhere were fairly certain the WMD story was just that, and the Bin Laden--Saddam connection equally invalid.  But as politicians on both sides do, when you have no real facts and if the truth doesn't fit your agenda, make up your own facts and repeat them enough so that you distort reality altogether. But they got away with it because power has it's influence and it's impossible to prove a negative.

What was unequivocal at the time, and now, is the historical record of Western dominance and manipulation in the Middle East. Unfortunately it wasn't just Bush who didn't know history; not enough of citizens do either and certainly most of the media are composed of journalists and not too many historians. In the larger media outlets, ratings and access are more important than facts. 

But of all of Bush's transparent lies, the statement that the region hates us for our freedom was as untrue then as it is now. They hate us for our religious influence, our appropriating the only natural resource many of these nations have and doing so by installing dictators who oppressed and tortured their own people, enriched themselves and for whom freedom was a foreign concept.

Bush has really gotten a pass on his eight years of blunders caused by his ignorance and arrogance.  He stays out of the limelight more than most past presidents and no doubt because he was incompetent and an embarrassment to his party and to the U.S.  But history is not something we can continually forget or ignore, or in Bush's case never took the time to learn in the first place. But he did find time to study the Bible everyday, he was proud to say. That is fine, but maybe pick up a history book before you start a war.

In the case of Bush and the Iraq War, not knowing history is what created the 10 year quagmire of Iraq, killed thousands of American soliders, tens of thousands of Iraqis, diminished the standing of the U.S. with allies, fueled the contempt enemies and created more problems than it solved.

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To learn more of the fascinating history of this part of the world:

For a great, balanced look at western influence and border making in the Middle East, I recommend this book

Power, Faith and Fantasy

For another look at this issue, please watch even the first in this 3 part series on the post WW I take over the the region by Western powers.