peterms Posted February 11, 2018 Share Posted February 11, 2018 Can this be true? What a shithole. Quote In 1992, Oklahoma passed a ballot initiative saying that the state could only raise taxes with a three quarters majority in the state assembly, creating a one-way ratchet where every tax cut becomes effectively permanent, including the sweetheart deals cut for frackers and the deep cuts to taxes on the wealthiest residents of the state. As a result, the state is going broke. Teachers haven't gotten a raise in 10 years and the only way they can afford to accept the pay -- third-worst in the nation -- is by negotiating a four-day school week in 90 districts, freeing teachers up to take jobs at Walmart on Mondays to make ends meet. Teachers are fleeing the state in droves, including the Teacher of the Year, who quit his job in 2016 shortly after receiving his award, taking a better-paid teaching job in a neighboring state (the Dallas school system actively recruits Oklahoma teachers with Oklahoma City hiring booths). Teachers are especially hard hit: their health plan was replaced with a private system that eats up more than $1000/month for a family of three -- one teaching aide was actually paying to work her job, spending $200/month more on health insurance than she was paid in salary. Teachers make ends meet with public housing vouchers and food stamps, and school food-bank drives sometimes give their leftovers to hungry teachers and their families. It's not just teachers: the highway patrol has been given orders not to completely fill their gas-tanks at the pump, to help with state cash-flow; drunk drivers go free because there is no one available to process their tickets, and the prison system is on the verge of collapse. No fact embarrasses Oklahomans more, or repels prospective businesses more, than the number of cash-strapped districts that have gone to four-day weeks. Yet even such a radical change may not help finances much. Paul Hill, a professor of education at the University of Washington, Bothell, estimates that the savings are “in the 1 or 2% range at most”. That sliver is still important to Kent Holbrook, superintendent of public schools in Inola (the self-styled “Hay Capital of the World”). “In my mind, that’s five or six teachers,” says Mr Holbrook. Already, from 2008 to 2016, he has lost 11 teachers from a corps that once numbered 100. He has also had to reduce Spanish classes and, for the tenth year running, delay buying new textbooks. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LondonLax Posted February 12, 2018 Share Posted February 12, 2018 8 hours ago, bickster said: And 5. Trump appears not to know what the three branches of government are. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villakram Posted February 12, 2018 Share Posted February 12, 2018 17 hours ago, peterms said: Can this be true? What a shithole. Republicanism 101. Though the Dems are very capable of making a mess of things too, e.g., the mess Granholm made of the MI economy, though Snyder is hardly doing all that much better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterms Posted February 12, 2018 Share Posted February 12, 2018 A bit long, sorry. But a good overview and explanation of some of the rationale and motivation behind US foreign policy. Quote Something like a privatised global constitution governs financial relationships affecting the life prospects of everyone on the planet. Not only does this entrench the pursuit of interests that run counter to social justice, ecological sustainability, and even real economic productivity.[1] It is implicated in a further, fundamental and all-encompassing, problem. War. I want to explore the connection, but, first, why speak of a privatised constitution? As Katharina Pistor shows, the very existence of finance has the form of a set of legal contracts underwritten by legal norms and institutionalized means of enforcing them.[2] A critical problem, for the vast majority of us, is that the people with most power over the financial system are the least bound by any socially or politically mandated norms. A global rule of law relating to finance is determined by a kind of supra-political order that itself has no constitutional oversight. An essentially private constitution, created and imposed by a global elite, circumvents and subverts the politics of states and the will of peoples. Gunther Teubner points out that this neoliberal world order has a stratum of constitutional norms that provide transnational corporations with unlimited latitude for action;[3] Turkuler Isiksel highlights how private corporations’ investors’ rights can even colonise human rights regimes.[4] With more than three thousand international investment agreements in effect around the world, private corporations can sue signatory states in order to protect their interests in those states’ own territories. These disputes are heard in legal venues above the jurisdictional authority of states, mostly under the auspices of the International Center for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). As the ‘investment’ dimension of ‘trade and investment’ agreements comes to involve ever more egregious shifts of power from democratically legitimate authorities to private corporate actors, private rights are even effectively able to trump human rights.[5] From the standpoint of public concern, this looks like the rule of law gone rogue. The privatised global constitution has taken shape in a period of intense and protracted warfare in many places around the world. The international banking system demonstrated remarkable resilience even throughout World War 2 and has continued to do so during the many further conflicts since.[6] The fact that the banking system is compatible with intense and persistent warfare can be regarded, I think, as demonstrated. The privatised financial constitution has not only survived but seems possibly even to have flourished in these circumstances. This could suggest a lack of incentive on the part of the financial elite to support measures to prevent or contain wars. Once we acknowledge that concern, we face a possibility that is more disturbing still: it could be that those who control the financial system have an active interest in the perpetuation of warfare. Finance and war are interrelated in three quite general respects: finance needs to be raised in order to fund war; war can be used for the pillage that replenishes finance; war can serve as an outlet for the capital on which finance can draw profits, in particular through arms manufacture and its associated businesses. Those functions can be mutually reinforcing. Let us consider some more specific connections between the way the global financial architecture is governed and particular wars of the present epoch. Elite financial interests, we know, do not necessarily align with those of states: the Germans, British and Americans, for instance, maintained banking cooperation even throughout World War 2 under the auspices of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). On the other hand, states that set themselves apart from the dominant system of global financial governance under the BIS do seem to find themselves embroiled in wars that are not typically of their choosing. This correlation applies to a number of states upon which war has been visited in recent years, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen; the correlation also holds for other countries that have been subject to economic sanctions by the United States – like Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, and Cuba. A further distinguishing feature of those named countries is resistance to accepting the continuance of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. Correlation is not causation, of course, but it is worth looking at a little more closely. Regarding the war on Iraq, for instance, we know this was not genuinely motivated by concerns about weapons of mass destruction.[7] Many critics have suggested it was motivated by corporate oil interests in the territory, but William Clark has added the more specific suggestion that it was as much, if not more, an oil currency war.[8] Support for this suggestion has also come from Karen Kwiatkowsky, formerly of the US Air Force, who was privy to military intelligence. Speaking in 2004, she noted the significance of the fact that in the year 2000, Saddam Hussein had switched Iraq’s oil sales from the dollar to the euro under the UN Food for Oil programme. Although the oil sales under that programme were relatively small, if sanctions were lifted, then ‘sales from the country with the second largest oil reserves on the planet would have been moving to the euro’, and ‘that could cause massive, almost glacial, shifts in confidence in trading on the dollar.’[9] Tyler Shipley similarly argues that at the crux of the Iraq war was the drive to maintain hegemony of the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency.[10] As Rohini Hensman and Marinella Correggia explain, due the dollar’s status, currency that the rest of the world has to work and often even suffer to attain, the US has simply to print.[11] So the US can rack up debts to an extent that no other country could. The downside for the US is that doing so has permitted the productivity of its national economy to decline to an extent that has perhaps not been fully appreciated. If the dollar were to lose its world reserve status, the supply of dollars worldwide would then so exceed demand that the lack of collateral would be exposed, thereby prompting a devaluation whose consequences could be catastrophic. The multiple business advantages of maintaining high military spending thus include the direct curtailing of attempts by resistant nations to undermine the status of the dollar. Not only with Iraq, but with Libya too, there are suggestions that control of the monetary system may have been a motivating factor for the war. Kwiatkowski tells how she had drafted intelligence reports on the success of Libya’s assiduous efforts in recent years to regain the respect of the international community. Her reports, however, were then edited to the point of falsification.[12] This was done, she said, in order that her masters ‘could present their case on Libya in a way that said it was still a threat to its neighbors and that Libya was still a belligerent, antagonistic force.’[13] Following the onset of hostilities, it so transpired that Libya became the site of a very remarkable event whose oddity is hardly explicable except in the light of the above line of analysis. In early 2011, when the opposition forces in Libya appeared to be in a state of some desperation and disarray,[14] there came the somewhat incongruous report that these rebels were establishing a new central bank. Robert Wenzel, writing at the time in the Economic Policy Journal (28 March 2011), did not conceal his amazement: ‘Here’s one for the Guinness Book of Records. The Libyan rebels in Benghazi said they have created a new national oil company to replace the corporation controlled by leader Muammar Qaddafi whose assets were frozen by the United Nations Security Council and have formed a central bank!’ From this, Wenzel inferred that we were finding here ‘some pretty sophisticated influences’. It was unprecedented for a central bank to be created ‘in just a matter of weeks out of a popular uprising.’[15] As CNBC senior editor John Carney reflected, this was probably ‘the first time a revolutionary group has created a central bank while it is still in the midst of fighting the entrenched political power’ and it ‘certainly seems to indicate how extraordinarily powerful central bankers have become in our era.’[16] The case of Libya not only suggests some international coordination and planning, but also provides an indication of what passes for legitimacy in this world of interventionism. The rebels had literally broken into the Benghazi bank in March 2011, and when interviewed about it, their U.S.-educated finance minister, Ali Tarhouni, said: ‘“Let me put it this way: We robbed our own bank”. He went on to explain that ‘the bank heist serves as an illustration of the rebels’ ingenuity, wherewithal and organizational skills. It’s proof, he said, that they are ready to run the nation.’[17] It appears, then, that, with the support of the US, favoured rebel leaders can treat entire nations as if existing in a state of nature with respect to the law. The justification offered in the case of Libya, as in so many others, was supposedly ‘humanitarian’; yet, as we have noted, this was based on a falsification of facts. Certainly, no genuine humanitarian motivation is manifest in bombing entire countries to destruction, or in supporting the overthrow of existing state institutions without having any clear plan for establishing either a better constitutional order or improved political leadership. And that criticism does not even touch on more basic questions about the criteria for any legitimate external intervention in a sovereign state’s affairs. But why is it that certain ‘regimes’ become ripe for imperial subversion or overthrow? What was it, in particular, that linked together the list of countries that retired general Wesley Clark shared in his famous 2007 interview as being next in the sights of the United States’ bellicose intentions and most of which since have indeed been plunged into horrendous wars?[18] Clark professed himself, like his reported source, to be stumped as to the reason. If the strategic objective was not obvious even to senior military figures, then it seems to me that we cannot rule out the kind of motivation that we have seen circumstantial evidence for both in Iraq and Libya. It is quite possible that a number of economic and geopolitical interests converge in motivating the policy concerned, and quite possible that concerns about perceived threats to the dollar as global reserve currency are among them. We have noted the congruence of motives regarding dollar hegemony and control of oil markets, but the case of Libya alerts us to a further possible dimension of financial interests in war. For it might be asked how allowing the rebels to get control of Libya’s oil and wealth benefits the global financial elite. Was a larger purpose for their backers served? Although not mentioned much by western politicians or media, it could be a significant fact that the Central Bank of Libya was 100% state owned. An analysis that found resonance at the time was Eric Encina’s argument that the world’s ‘globalist financiers and market manipulators’ could not stand the Libyan monetary authority’s independence, for the government still created its own money, the Libyan Dinar, through its own central bank. ‘One major problem for globalist banking cartels is that in order to do business with Libya, they must go through the Libyan Central Bank and its national currency, a place where they have absolutely zero dominion or power-broking ability.’[19] As Ellen Brown observes, it is this monetary and financial independence that would explain, inter alia, ‘where Libya gets the money to provide free education and medical care and to issue each young couple $50,000 in interest-free state loans.’[20] Kwiatkowsky and others have also observed that whatever the faults of the former Libyan government, its deployment of finance in the public interest appears to have been impressive. That this arrangement should so eagerly be replaced by a US-backed band of rebels clearly presents a scenario of a kind that a global constitution for monetary governance might want to consider avoiding. Nor is Libya an isolated case of this kind. Similar conflicts of interest appear to apply with regard to Iran, another part of what George W. Bush referred to as the ‘Axis of Evil’, a group of countries each of which had an independent central bank and a stance of resistance in the face of what they regarded as US imperialism.[21] Their resistance includes looking at ways of avoiding being bound in with the dollar. Iran has been actively exploring alternatives since at least 2002 and has taken various significant steps to that end, including establishing its own oil bourse that trades in non-dollar currencies. Meanwhile, it has remained firmly committed to the principle that the Central Bank of Iran should not fall under private control because this would not benefit the Iranian people over the long run. The United States has responded with sanctions, and commentators have suggested that their unstated aims specifically include ‘shutting down Iran’s central bank’.[22] At the time of writing, Iran has not become the subject of a war, although the threats and drumbeating are now quite intense. And then there is Syria. Syria’s Central Bank is state-owned and state-controlled with a mission to serve the national economy and the Syrian people. It is not beholden to the international banking class,[23] and nor is it therefore subject, through having to deal with the IMF and World Bank, to the ‘usurious loans generating artificial debt crises by which [other] nations are in effect enslaved’ (‘Syrian Girl’ 2012).[24] It is certainly striking that, despite more than six years of warfare and economic sanctions, the country’s administration and army retain the practical cooperation of the wider population; and although the country’s finances and infrastructure are under massive strain, provision of public services is as far as possible maintained, including salaries in opposition-held areas. The practical message sent by the Syrian people through their astounding resilience is that whatever improvement needs to be made to their constitution, and whatever they may in due course decide is the best way to reform the political administration of the country, this will be their decision. To be noted, moreover, is that no part of the domestic political opposition – secular or jihadist – has been arguing for a more capitalist or globalist constitution; nor have they been ideologically committed to integrating Syria into the privatised constitutional arrangements of the foreign powers that have been pressing their regime change agenda. It is not only in the Middle East and North Africa region that we find countries that are resistant to global finance and are also in the crosshairs of bellicose intentions. North Korea, for instance, in shifting towards the Euro for the pricing of its oil may not have the same material impact as Iraq and Iran, but it does have symbolic significance. Venezuela, with its vast oil reserves, presents both a symbolic and material challenge with its moves to detach its trade in them from the dollar. With Arab nations more generally starting to look at Euros to replace the dollar, and Russians and China doing so too, the threat to the dollar’s status as global reserve currency is evidently becoming increasingly serious. It could be argued that what the US has been doing in recent decades, with the continued printing of dollars without creating corresponding real assets, is inflating the mother of all bubbles. If the dollar were to lose its world reserve currency status, its price would collapse and that bubble would burst. The immediate results could be catastrophic for the US, we may assume, and very likely create a severe global crisis. So a determination of capitalist world leaders to stave it off by any means necessary would not be inexplicable. The role of the central bank system under the BIS is inextricably linked with that system. Those countries whose central banks are within it are structurally beholden to it; and the preservation of the dollar’s hegemony is functional for it. The countries that stand outside these arrangements may or may not present serious material challenges to the dominant order of things, but their persistence could be a cause of concern for its leaders. Yet if we look at this matter from the perspective of a public, and shared human, concern about the welfare of human beings around the planet, and about the condition of the biosphere itself – including our nonhuman cohabitors – one is bound to think that the countries of resistance may come closer to providing a model of a sustainable and just future than those that are bought into the idea of a ‘progressive’ liberal democracy taking over the world. It seems to me, in fact, that some of us may have laboured too long under certain illusions about liberalism and liberal democracy. Why assume, for instance, that neo-liberalism is an aberration with respect to liberal business as usual, or that liberal interventionism is genuinely an ethical alternative to outright neo-conservative warmongering? Anybody who looks dispassionately at the cause of the wars of the past two decades and at the arguments used to perpetuate them – under administrations of both conservative and liberal politicians – will see an essential continuity of fundamental attachment to a capitalist world system that exploits resources and the majority of people for the benefit of a tiny number. I fear that ethically intended liberal thinkers may prove to have been tragically mistaken if they believe that the existing system of monetary governance can be adapted through reform so as to yield the possibility of global justice. I see no reason to believe that real justice for the world will readily be ceded by the powers that have created the global rule of rogue law. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheAuthority Posted February 13, 2018 VT Supporter Share Posted February 13, 2018 And next on US satire daily... I had to check that it was actually the GOP Twitter. Yup, it is. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villakram Posted February 13, 2018 Share Posted February 13, 2018 2 hours ago, peterms said: A bit long, sorry. But a good overview and explanation of some of the rationale and motivation behind US foreign policy. or tl;dr Empire. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterms Posted February 13, 2018 Share Posted February 13, 2018 7 hours ago, villakram said: or tl;dr Empire. Well, not quite. What I found interesting was drawing out the connections between countries seeking independence through monetary arrangements and central bank control, proposals for alternatives to pricing of oil in dollars, perceived consequential threats to the status of the dollar as the world reserve currency, and the ferocity of the subsequent US aggression and invasions. It's more than imperialism, it's as though these actions were seen as posing an existential threat to the US - which would not be how most people would see them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blandy Posted February 13, 2018 Moderator Share Posted February 13, 2018 2 hours ago, peterms said: Well, not quite. What I found interesting was drawing out the connections between countries seeking independence through monetary arrangements and central bank control, proposals for alternatives to pricing of oil in dollars, perceived consequential threats to the status of the dollar as the world reserve currency, and the ferocity of the subsequent US aggression and invasions. It's more than imperialism, it's as though these actions were seen as posing an existential threat to the US - which would not be how most people would see them. It's somewhat inconsistent with its conclusions and assertions. - I don't quite see how we can get from "Elite financial interests [which] ..do not necessarily align with those of states" sort of being in control of which currencies are global reserve currencies and generally kind of ruling the world above the level of governments (including the US Gov't) and then the US Gov't being all naughty doing wars and causing all the injustice to make sure that it keeps the dollar as "the" global reserve currency" (and so can do cheap borrowing..etc.). I don't quite get how the insinuation that liberal interventionism is not an ethical alternative to outright neo-conservative warmongering is even made. Saying "Anybody who looks dispassionately at the cause of the wars of the past two decades and at the arguments used to perpetuate them – under administrations of both conservative and liberal politicians – will see an essential continuity of fundamental attachment to a capitalist world system that exploits resources and the majority of people for the benefit of a tiny number" is to rather ignore that most wars in the past couple of decades or so have been primarily caused by or been about religion and ethnicity differences and desire for independence etc. Kurds, Bosnians, Rwandans, Ukrainians, Talibans, Afghans, Palestinians, Chechens, Burmese, Yemenis, Syrians, Tamils and so on and so on (and there are loads more). Which isn't to absolve the USA or the West of some horrendous misjudgements and so on. But liberal intervention in the form of the UN or of from time to time individual or groups of western nations (e.g. in Yugoslavia Bosnia) is far from the same thing as neo-conservative warmongering. So why assume it is an ethical alternative - because facts absolutely support that assumption. States, especially powerful ones, push their weight around - Russia, China, USA, etc etc. They use methods from diplomatic pressure, to bribery to intimidation espionage....and all the tricks. It's not Capitalism that is at the root of that, though. It's a bit baser. Greed, religious hatred, sectarianism, self protection - just the basic unattractive human tenets Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villakram Posted February 13, 2018 Share Posted February 13, 2018 10 hours ago, peterms said: Well, not quite. What I found interesting was drawing out the connections between countries seeking independence through monetary arrangements and central bank control, proposals for alternatives to pricing of oil in dollars, perceived consequential threats to the status of the dollar as the world reserve currency, and the ferocity of the subsequent US aggression and invasions. It's more than imperialism, it's as though these actions were seen as posing an existential threat to the US - which would not be how most people would see them. I understand this may be news to you and so it can be interpreted in a more benign manner. However, see the British empire and the Spanish empire etc. etc. before that. The reserve currency betroths an exorbitant privilege on its issuer. It must be defended. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterms Posted February 13, 2018 Share Posted February 13, 2018 26 minutes ago, villakram said: I understand this may be news to you and so it can be interpreted in a more benign manner. However, see the British empire and the Spanish empire etc. etc. before that. The reserve currency betroths an exorbitant privilege on its issuer. It must be defended. I'm not sure what you mean by reserve currency, but I'm using the term in the context of the modern international banking system, not gold theft from Aztecs. But yes, in the modern system, it's an advantage to be defended. Where the article is interesting is in making the connections between this, and the extreme force used to do so. The connection between having oil priced in dollars and stopping countries having their own central banks and being invaded by the US is not commonly discussed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villakram Posted February 13, 2018 Share Posted February 13, 2018 8 minutes ago, peterms said: I'm not sure what you mean by reserve currency, but I'm using the term in the context of the modern international banking system, not gold theft from Aztecs. But yes, in the modern system, it's an advantage to be defended. Where the article is interesting is in making the connections between this, and the extreme force used to do so. The connection between having oil priced in dollars and stopping countries having their own central banks and being invaded by the US is not commonly discussed. Oh, I absolutely agree. It's a big secret, right out in the open. I don't think it is any accident that it is not discussed on our side of the fence, e.g., see the "Eurodollar" market. The acting of the big banking houses is amazing. WWII is the obvious point, but this goes all the way back to Nepoleonic France at least. I often wonder how it is discussed in places like China/India given their huge populations and hence natural place in the global power order. I do not foresee any huge sudden turnover occurring absent a hot war, and the Chinese are integrated into the BIS etc., though with no where near the influence that their wealth should provide. A change of the guard is occurring nonetheless, these are only easy to identify after the fact however. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterms Posted February 13, 2018 Share Posted February 13, 2018 8 hours ago, blandy said: It's somewhat inconsistent with its conclusions and assertions. - I don't quite see how we can get from "Elite financial interests [which] ..do not necessarily align with those of states" sort of being in control of which currencies are global reserve currencies and generally kind of ruling the world above the level of governments (including the US Gov't) and then the US Gov't being all naughty doing wars and causing all the injustice to make sure that it keeps the dollar as "the" global reserve currency" (and so can do cheap borrowing..etc.). I don't see the inconsistency here. The argument is that there is a global financial elite (I'm not sure anyone actually disputes this any more) whose loyalty is not to countries but to themselves (this is less commonly remarked), which has reshaped the international financial and legal system for its own advantage (TTIP perhaps brought this more into the public gaze) and that countries which resist this are at risk of destabilisation and invasion, often led by the US. Perhaps the point he doesn't fully draw out is that the US in doing this is not following the interests of its own citizens but serving as the enforcer of the new global elite - though anyone from Trump leftwards will agree that the US state very often does not act in the interests of its own citizens. 8 hours ago, blandy said: I don't quite get how the insinuation that liberal interventionism is not an ethical alternative to outright neo-conservative warmongering is even made. Saying "Anybody who looks dispassionately at the cause of the wars of the past two decades and at the arguments used to perpetuate them – under administrations of both conservative and liberal politicians – will see an essential continuity of fundamental attachment to a capitalist world system that exploits resources and the majority of people for the benefit of a tiny number" is to rather ignore that most wars in the past couple of decades or so have been primarily caused by or been about religion and ethnicity differences and desire for independence etc. Kurds, Bosnians, Rwandans, Ukrainians, Talibans, Afghans, Palestinians, Chechens, Burmese, Yemenis, Syrians, Tamils and so on and so on (and there are loads more). Well, among that list are examples that are not about ethnicity or desire for independence, but geopolitics with external actors playing a very large role (Ukraine, Syria, Yemen, Afganistan) - but his point is "But why is it that certain ‘regimes’ become ripe for imperial subversion or overthrow?". He is not addressing the wider question "Why is there war". 8 hours ago, blandy said: Which isn't to absolve the USA or the West of some horrendous misjudgements and so on. But liberal intervention in the form of the UN or of from time to time individual or groups of western nations (e.g. in Yugoslavia Bosnia) is far from the same thing as neo-conservative warmongering. So why assume it is an ethical alternative - because facts absolutely support that assumption. We have neocon warmongering alongside liberal concern. We will for example fundraise for surgery for the children whose limbs have been blown off by the weapons we allow, in fact encourage, companies based here to sell. We are not consistent. 8 hours ago, blandy said: States, especially powerful ones, push their weight around - Russia, China, USA, etc etc. They use methods from diplomatic pressure, to bribery to intimidation espionage....and all the tricks. It's not Capitalism that is at the root of that, though. It's a bit baser. Greed, religious hatred, sectarianism, self protection - just the basic unattractive human tenets Yes. But the point of the article, and why I found it interesting, is the discussion of the new ways in which this primitive urge now expresses itself, through an international finance and legal system. More effective than spears, or nukes. It's important because the enemy is no longer the other side of a border, and the defence is not a roll of barbed wire or a wall or something more powerful. The enemy now attacks us through contracts, PFI, privatisation. If we somehow manage to resist via the state, if it has not already been captured, the state will be subject to overthrow. Is our natural instinct to defend a territory rather than an interest? If so, then an attack that is not territorial in nature would be more effective. It's also why we should pay attention to who is doing what to whom, and why. Syria, for example, is not best understood when framed as "rebels seeking freedom from a dictator", more like "an engineered uprising, funded and trained from abroad, in pursuit of regional geopolitical power shifts, to seve a wider agenda". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maqroll Posted February 14, 2018 Author Share Posted February 14, 2018 grim politics Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Straggler Posted February 14, 2018 Share Posted February 14, 2018 Is anyone buying this snake oil? Quote One of Donald Trump’s lawyers has reportedly confirmed that he personally paid out more than $100,000 to an adult actress who once claimed to have had an affair with Mr Trump. Attorney Michael Cohen told the New York Times he paid actress Stephanie Clifford – stage name Stormy Daniels – $130,000 out of his own pocket in the months leading up to the 2016 election. “Neither the Trump Organisation nor the Trump campaign was a party to the transaction with Ms. Clifford, and neither reimbursed me for the payment, either directly or indirectly,” Mr Cohen told the Times. So if I have the logic correct Trumps lawyer is holding the following positions all at the same time. Trump and Stormy Daniels have never had an affair There is no NDA He made a payment of $130,000 to Stormy Daniels for undisclosed reasons (but definitely not as hush money). He made the payment himself out of the kindness of his own heart as he apparently received nothing in return from Stormy as there is no NDA and he didn't get to claim the cash back from Trump in any form. He won't answer any questions as to why he decided to make this payment apart from it most certainly was not paid to influence the campaign in any way. Anyone care to step up and explain this crapsack of douchery? I mean this is as credible as a Trump University Degree. He is basically saying that he paid a porn star a small fortune from his own pocket for no reason. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blandy Posted February 14, 2018 Moderator Share Posted February 14, 2018 12 hours ago, peterms said: I don't see the inconsistency here. The argument is that there is a global financial elite (I'm not sure anyone actually disputes this any more) whose loyalty is not to countries but to themselves (this is less commonly remarked), which has reshaped the international financial and legal system for its own advantage (TTIP perhaps brought this more into the public gaze) and that countries which resist this are at risk of destabilisation and invasion, often led by the US. Perhaps the point he doesn't fully draw out is that the US in doing this is not following the interests of its own citizens but serving as the enforcer of the new global elite - though anyone from Trump leftwards will agree that the US state very often does not act in the interests of its own citizens. Well, among that list are examples that are not about ethnicity or desire for independence, but geopolitics with external actors playing a very large role (Ukraine, Syria, Yemen, Afganistan) - but his point is "But why is it that certain ‘regimes’ become ripe for imperial subversion or overthrow?". He is not addressing the wider question "Why is there war". We have neocon warmongering alongside liberal concern. We will for example fundraise for surgery for the children whose limbs have been blown off by the weapons we allow, in fact encourage, companies based here to sell. We are not consistent. Yes. But the point of the article, and why I found it interesting, is the discussion of the new ways in which this primitive urge now expresses itself, through an international finance and legal system. More effective than spears, or nukes. It's important because the enemy is no longer the other side of a border, and the defence is not a roll of barbed wire or a wall or something more powerful. The enemy now attacks us through contracts, PFI, privatisation. If we somehow manage to resist via the state, if it has not already been captured, the state will be subject to overthrow. Is our natural instinct to defend a territory rather than an interest? If so, then an attack that is not territorial in nature would be more effective. It's also why we should pay attention to who is doing what to whom, and why. Syria, for example, is not best understood when framed as "rebels seeking freedom from a dictator", more like "an engineered uprising, funded and trained from abroad, in pursuit of regional geopolitical power shifts, to serve a wider agenda". I think the varied nature of your reply (thanks) kind of underlines my point really. The situation is a lot more varied than the arguments made by the author - which to me seemed like a notion that a percieved threat to the dollar is/was behind all kinds of horrors that have occurred. He seemed to me to be arguing that these horrors were initiated by a global financial elite which sits above or beyond the control of Governments and manipulates the nasty USA to doing nasty things, all because "money" and that's why the world's full of wars. And then he adds in some veiled (because it's bollex) stuff about neo-cons and liberals being the same in terms of end result. The arguments he makes about "the" reserve currency don't stand as valid, either. It's true the US dollar is "a" reserve currency and the most widely held one, but it is not the only one. I think he's picking the wrong argument and picking the wrong "problem", really. The problem isn't that war is (mostly) caused by (ultimately) the USA and/or global financial elites in order to keep the dollar as "the" reserve currency. Syria, for example. The whole thing started off as a result of some kids who painted anti Assad slogans being (like thousands before them) imprisoned, tortured...etc. by the secret police. As the story of that got out, their families and local people started a bit of a protest/uprising, which spread on the tinder of years of oppression and dictatroship and cruelty and corruption and etc. perpetrated by Assad's regime. Like a lot of that part of the world, the people living there "cracked" and the whole revolution thing spread from one place to the next. Nothing to do with financial elites controlling (at that time) Obama - he didn't want to get involved. Once the whole chemical weapons thing happened - the barrel bombs on Damascus (? IIRC) things changed. Syria is of no benefit to the "financial elites" . The likes of Kurds, Turkey, Russia, the US, Islamic nutters...etc. are all in there, and none of them are there because money elites. It's geo-politics, religion, sectarianism, retention of power (Assad) and all sorts in one humungous mess. If you talk about "we" fundraising for kids with injuries, then it's perhaps important to say that people raising or donating money for injured or starving or sick people and "we" also "encourage" sale of weapons to some nations - it's not necessarily the same "we". And in neither case is it anything to do with the global money elite and the dollar. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post NurembergVillan Posted February 14, 2018 Moderator Popular Post Share Posted February 14, 2018 32 minutes ago, Straggler said: He is basically saying that he paid a porn star a small fortune from his own pocket for no reason. We've all been there. 3 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StefanAVFC Posted February 14, 2018 Share Posted February 14, 2018 17 minutes ago, NurembergVillan said: We've all been there. A real man of the people, an everyman if you will. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villakram Posted February 14, 2018 Share Posted February 14, 2018 6 hours ago, blandy said: Syria, for example. The whole thing started off as a result of some kids who painted anti Assad slogans being (like thousands before them) imprisoned, tortured...etc. by the secret police. As the story of that got out, their families and local people started a bit of a protest/uprising, which spread on the tinder of years of oppression and dictatroship and cruelty and corruption and etc. perpetrated by Assad's regime. Like a lot of that part of the world, the people living there "cracked" and the whole revolution thing spread from one place to the next. Nothing to do with financial elites controlling (at that time) Obama - he didn't want to get involved. Once the whole chemical weapons thing happened - the barrel bombs on Damascus (? IIRC) things changed. Syria is of no benefit to the "financial elites" . The likes of Kurds, Turkey, Russia, the US, Islamic nutters...etc. are all in there, and none of them are there because money elites. It's geo-politics, religion, sectarianism, retention of power (Assad) and all sorts in one humungous mess. Garbage. Where did the weapons come from? Ever read about the rat line? There's an infamous connection to another freedom and democracy operation here. Or about the fact the the Pentagon and Langley had different strategic priorities? That's just the US. Never mind any of the other countries who jammed their fingers all over the lives of the Syrian people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ikantcpell Posted February 14, 2018 Share Posted February 14, 2018 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LakotaDakota Posted February 14, 2018 Share Posted February 14, 2018 Mass shooting at florida school, still ongoing. At least one dead, 20-50 injured.. https://edition.cnn.com/2018/02/14/us/florida-school-shooting/index.html What you need to know Happening now: There is an active shooting unfolding at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida The shooter: Local authorities say the shooter is still at large. The victims: There are "multiple injures," according to Broward Schools. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts