Rogue Superpower and World Domination
March 23, 2010 " -- " MWC" -- Successive governments of the United States of America like to designate other countries, whose leaders they do not like, „rogue states“. Noam Chomsky showed in „Rogue States“ that this designation does not apply to countries such as Iraq but to the United States itself. According to him, the American superpower fulfills all the characteritics of such an entity. The U. S. and its „junior partner“, the United Kingdom, made Iraq a cartoon of an „outlaw nation“ that threatens the entire world, and Saddam Hussein the reincarnation of Adolf Hitler. If that would have been true, they should have turned to the U. N. Security Council. Instead they started an act of aggression against Iraq, thereby showing contempt for international law and the U. N. Charter, which would have provided a legal base to handle this crisis peacefully. Chomsky mentions that Libya, Cuba, and North Korea were also designated as „rogue states“, and the ´boy emperor from Crawford, Texas` named Iran, Iraq and North Korea the „axis of evil“. U. S. President Ronald Reagan had already termed the Soviet Union an „evil emprie“. Having red Carl Boggs book, one can doubt whether the right countries were stigmatized „rogue states” because „The Crime of Empire“ is the criminal history of U. S. behavior in international relations.
The central thesis of Carl Boggs`book may be summerized in the following statement: „The U. S. stands today as the most fearsome outlaw nation in the world, its leaders having contributed to a steady descent into global lawlessness“. The author explores the rise of the U. S. from its fundation in 1776 as it rose against old European colonialism to the status of an empire, which dominates the world. Boggs follows an interesting approach. Over a period of more than 200 years the development of U. S. policy is described as a history of „military criminality and outlawry“. Boggs links global and domestic (political, economic and cultural) elements of a power structure that is addicted to militarism and war. The present U. S. neo-colonialist policies of aggression cannot be understood apart from this historical legacy. According to the author, the legacy of U. S. outlawry has its origins in the earliest days of the Republic beginning with the extermination of the Native American.
This book is the third part of a trilogy on U. S. imperial power which started with „Imperial Delusions“ in 2004 and was followed by „The Hollywood War Machine“ in 2006, the last one written with Tom Pollard. Without the support of the film industry, the corporate media and the military-industrial complex the American public could not have been so easily manipulated into supporting the illegal wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Carl Boggs teaches Social Science at the National University in Los Angeles. In 2007 he has received the Charles McCoy Career Achievement Award from the American Political Science Association. In seven chapters of his book, the author succeeds to convince readers about the criminal nature of the U.S. superpower.
The consequences of U. S. outlawry for the future of international relations are regarded by the author as „nightmarish”: in the wake of 9/11 the U. S. lost all legal restrains on its military conduct and stepped up its quest for world hegemony aggressively. The Bush administration demonstrated open contempt for international law, the United Nations, and the International Criminal Court (ICC). This contempt of the rule of law „is deeply rooted in U. S. practice and intellectual culture”. If that would not have been enough,it even arrogated itself a „right” to attack any country it deems as a potenial threat to U. S. domination.
Boggs points at a dichotomy in U. S. governments behavior. „No ruling elite proclaim the ´rule of law`more loudly, and no society produces more lawyers, prosecutors, judges, legal theorists – and prisons” than American society. But this goes no further than domestic society. At the international level, the U. S. „routinely favors power over legality, often dismissing legality as nuisance in the face of pressing global realities”. The U. S. power elites „believe” in „national exceptionalism”, they view the country as a „benevolent” or „benign” hegemon working for „democracy, human rights, and peace”. The elite – politicians, media, academia, and think tanks - presents U. S. policy as „pragmatic”, non-ideological, furthering liberal democracy, freedom, equality, and citizen participation. Policies are driven by a consensus of economic and geopolitical disiderata that actually „revolves around a struggle for domination over the Middle East”, writes Boggs. According to the author, the unholy legacy started with the white European settlers. They perceived their mission als „God-given”, driven by entlightenment and social progress. This „white-man´s burden” was later called „Manifest Destiny”. A concept rooted in the religious zealotry of the Puritans. In the nineteenth century the U. S. carried out military interventions in several nations in Central America and the Caribbean. The author writes that in 1844, under the presidency of James K. Polk, the U. S. annexed, after a self-provoced war against Mexico, large parts of Texas, California, New Mexiko, Arizona, and Nevada which belonged to Mexico. Already at that time this „premtive war” was justified by national security arguments. The Mexicans were slaughtered by the thousends as being „backward, ignorant, and undemocratic, hardly worthy proprietors of the land they had controlled”. Don´t the neocons and the religious fundamentalist of today cartoon the Muslims in a similar fashion, in order to dehumanize them and make attacks against them appeare more „rational”? With the massacre at Wounded Knee „a system firmly rooted in authoritarian controls and propelled by a micture of colonialism, racism, capitalism, and militarism” was firmly established. „An ideology of ruthless expansion was incorporated into the political culture, shared especially by the upper circles of politicians, business elites, the military, and Christian instituions.” And Boggs adds: „It is precisely the legacy of imperialism, warfare, and outlawry that was carried into, and helped shape, later U. S. behavior in such targeted areas as the Philippines, Central America, Korea, Vietnam, and the Middle East.”
In the chapter „Crimes against Peace”, „Warfare against Civilians”, „War Crimes by Proxy”, „Weapons of Mass Destruction”, „A Tale of Broken Treaties”, „War-Crimes Tribunals: Imperial Justice”, and „Torture and Other Atrocities” the author spreads out to readers a picture of this country, unknown to most of the world. To outsiders, the American political system presents a highly idealistic model that actually hides its hegemonic aims. This perception is widely shared around the world. In the chapter „Crimes against Peace”. Boggs shows how the U. S. violates not only the „Nuermberg principles” but also international law in general. He mentions that after World War II the Germans and Japanese were tried for „crimes against peace”. The Charter of the International Military Tribunal at Nuermberg defined such crimes as „planning, preparation, initiation, or waging a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements, or assurances, or participation in a common plan or conspiracy (for war)”. At different periods in its history „the U. S. has violated every one of the above principles, generally holding itself above the most hollowed norm of international law”, so Boggs.
The Nuremberg Charter had jurisdiction over four seperate crimes: conspiracy to carry out aggressive war, the actual launching of aggression, killing, destroying, and plundering during a war not justified by military necessity, and crimes against humanity related to atrocities against civilians. The Nazis were convicted on all four counts. Did not the rulers of the United States commit all these crimes in the Korean and Vietnam War? Or in the more recent, and illegal, wars against Afghanistan and Iraq?
In „War Crimes by Proxy” the author writes: „The Israeli occupation of Palestine, with its continuous acts of military aggression and human rights abuses over several decades, is surely the most visible (and no doubt most egregious case of U. S. war crimes by proxy. The state of Israel has in many ways served as an American imperial outpost in the Middle East, subsidized by every conceivable form of economic, political, dplomatic, and military backing – a relationship that is, indeed, sui generis.” Boggs mentions persistent Israeli disregard for international law and human rights. „Beneath its celebrated ´democracy`, the Israeli state was historically founded on brute force and terrorism leading to an occupation regime in clear violation of international legality. The territory expropriated by Israel is stolen land, justified by Zionist ideology with its phony biblical claims and sustained by a fanaticism that views the local population as subhuman primitives. (...) To legitimate such crminality, Israel lays claim to ethnic and religious supremacy rooted in Zionism, an ideology that glorifies colonial theft of land, appropriation of resouces, and military occupation denying even the most basic rights of Palestinians.” According to the author, the U. S.-Israel „client-state relationship is solidified and legitimated by the indefatigable and well-financed work of the Israel lobby”. In this respect, Boggs mentions AIPAC, JINSA, WINEP, ZOA, IPP which are blindly supported by the various Christian Zionist organizations, by think-tanks like AEI, PNAC and the Hudson Institute. Boggs quotes from the book „The Israel Lobby” by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt in which the authors wrote „if the United States were to choose sides on the basis of moral considerations alone, it would back the Palestinians not Israel”. The U. S. departure from moral priniciples started at the Lausanne conference in 1949 and has continued ever since. The book „The Passionate Attachment” by George W. Ball and Douglas B. Ball shows not only the one-sidedness of U. S. Middle Eastern policy but also the caving in to permanent Israeli pressure.
As a postscript, the author describes „the routinization of mass murder” refering to explanations from political psychology. For Boggs, the U. S. armed forces have occupied a special place when it comes to war crimes. Two of many reasons are noteworthy: the constant pressures to maintain imperial hegemony and a long history of evading legal accountability, writes Boggs. Winding up this extraordinary book, the author concludes: „A major problem with U. S. war crimes in general is that virtually everyone has managed to escape criminal liability, except in a few cases like My Lai and Abu Ghraib where lower personnel was tried, convicted, and generally given light sentences.” Last but not least, all the war crimes the U. S. has committed against other peoples were not planned and carried out by sadistic thugs or xenophobix right-wingers but by ordinary folks who come from solid family backgrounds, are well mannered, display elevated cultural taste, and may even be informed by good intentions, writes Boggs. And the planners of these horrendous crimes are mostly so-called whiz kids liberal, cultured, urbane, visionary government officials and many celebrated academics from the Ivy League Schools.
The following distinction could be important which Boggs did not contemplate on: The specific nature of U. S. „criminal conduct” is not so much the number of direct victims – which are much smaller than the victims of Hitler´s and Stalin´s brutal tyranny - but the fact that U. S. „criminal conduct” are being overly supported or at least tolerated by all governments which claim to represent democracy and human rights. Another specific feature of U. S. „criminal conduct” is that the U. S. crimes have been mostly been committed in broad daylight, whereas both the Nazi and Soviet regimes attempted to hide their crimes. The „crimes” by „democratic governments” require much greater reliance on the manipulative practice of mass media than were the crimes by the Nazi and Soviet regimes, because „crimes” by „democrativ governments” must be legitimized by public acceptance.
Having read the book I was flabbergasted by the fact that the country in which I studied International relations has such a long history of war crimes. If „The Shining City upon a Hill” and „the light of the world” does not end its hegemonc policy and become primus inter pares in the international system, it will be doomed to the fate of the Roman Empire.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Obamacare: Taxing The American People Into Oblivion
H.R. 3590, The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, to give it its full title, is rammed full of tax increases which will further economically cripple Americans already laboring under the worst financial crisis since the great depression.
The partnering Reconciliation Act, currently in the Senate, also contains a raft of pork barrel and tax hikes, there to fund the trillion dollar cost of nationalizing medicine.
As reported by Bloomberg News today, analysis by the nonpartisan congressional Joint Committee on Taxation reveals that the bill will generate $409.2 billion in additional taxes by 2019.
In addition, the Congressional Budget Office states that the bill also levies almost $69 billion more in penalties for those who fail to meet mandates to buy insurance.
The Journal of Accountancy boils down some of the tax hikes and penalty fees in H.R. 3590 and the Reconciliation Act – the highlights include:
Excise Tax on Uninsured Individuals – Individuals who fail to maintain minimum essential coverage will be subject to a penalty equal to $750. The fee for an uninsured individual under age 18 is one-half of the adult fee.
Excise Tax on High-Cost Employer Plans – The federal government would impose a 40% tax on the value of employer-sponsored health coverage exceeding certain thresholds. Those levels are projected to be $8,500 for self only and $23,000 for any other level by the year 2013. This excise was announced with fanfare by the White House and labor unions in January and remains in the final bill.
Increase in additional tax on distributions from Health Savings Accounts and Archer Medical Savings Accounts not used for qualified medical expenses – An increase from 10% to 20% on taxes of money in a health savings account not used for qualified medical expenses. For Archer medical savings accounts, an increase from 15% to 20%.
Additional Hospital Insurance Tax on High-Income Taxpayers – High income tax payers, making on a joint return over $250,000 and a standard return over $200,000, are required to pay an additional 0.5% of wages. This applies to both self-employed, and regularly employed individuals.
Fees on Health Plans – A fee applied to all health insurance providers based upon net premiums and any third party fees associated with the administration of those programs. The fees will total $6.7 billion annually. This figure begins at $8 billion in the Reconciliation Act and rises to $14.3 billion by 2018.
Tax on Indoor Tanning Services – The act imposes a 10% tax on amounts paid for indoor tanning services. Like a sales tax, the tax will be collected from the person tanning when payment for the tanning services is made.
Business Insider boils down 15 more tax hikes here – highlights include:
Tax on individuals without acceptable health care coverage – A 2.5% income tax on individuals who do not have health care coverage, limited to a cost less than the average national health care premium.
Excise tax on elective cosmetic medical procedures – A tax of 5% is levied upon the am mount paid for any cosmetic surgery. This does not include the need for such surgeries created by trauma or a disfiguring disease. If the tax is not collected by that professional completing the procedure, their business is still liable for the requirement.
The Reconciliation Act also legislates for the following surcharges: 1% surcharge on individuals making more than $350,000, 1.5% surcharge on individuals making more than $500,000, 5.4% surcharge on individuals making more than $1 million.
Yet more tax provisions in the bill are highlighted by INvestors Business Daily in their piece titled 20 Ways ObamaCare Will Take Away Our Freedoms – highlights include:
Taxes On Employers – If you are a large employer (defined as at least 101 employees) and you do not want to provide health insurance to your employee, then you will pay a $750 fine per employee (It could be $2,000 to $3,000 under the reconciliation changes) (Section 1513).
Taxes on Pharmaceutical Companies – The government will extract a fee of $2.3 billion annually from the pharmaceutical industry (Section 9008 (b)).
Taxes on medical device manufacturers – The government will extract a fee of $2 billion annually from medical device makers (Section 1405).
As a candidate and President, Barack Obama has had one core message for middle class Americans: I won’t raise your taxes.
By putting his name to the health care reform bill today he has swiftly put to bed any pretence that he would uphold that pledge (multi-trillion dollar bailouts aside).
While the new taxes on individuals are bad enough, the penalties imposed on pharmaceutical corporations, health insurers and employers are will inevitably serve as a double whammy as the hikes will undoubtedly be passed on to the general public in the form of higher costs.
“Simply, you have nationalized healthcare by proxy.” writes Jonah Goldberg of the LA Times.
“Insurance companies are now heavily regulated government contractors. Way to get big business out of Washington! They will clear a small, government-approved profit on top of their government-approved fees. Then, when healthcare costs rise — and they will — Democrats will insist, yet again, that the profit motive is to blame and out from this Obamacare Trojan horse will pour another army of liberals demanding a more honest version of single-payer.”
“The Obama administration has turned the insurance industry into the Blackwater of socialized medicine.” Goldberg concludes.
A swift dose of propaganda is sure to silence some critics. However, if the softly softly approach fails, the myriad of new taxes and regulations contained in the Obamacare bill will be aggressively enforced by no less than 16,500 new “combat trained” IRS agents armed to the teeth with shotguns, who will also closely scrutinize Americans’ income tax returns and be waiting to pounce should they find evidence of anyone trying to avoid paying for mandatory government health care.
Even if you agree with socialized health care in principle, the fact is that this will only benefit the insurance companies who wrote it. Meanwhile millions of Americans will be subjected to more taxation, harassment, and oppression at the hands of a federal government run amok. An out of control leviathan, hell-bent on an agenda to control every aspect of your life, as they lay in wait to exploit the momentum achieved through the passage of Obamacare by ramming through nightmare cap and tax levies to further financially castrate already beleaguered Americans.
The partnering Reconciliation Act, currently in the Senate, also contains a raft of pork barrel and tax hikes, there to fund the trillion dollar cost of nationalizing medicine.
As reported by Bloomberg News today, analysis by the nonpartisan congressional Joint Committee on Taxation reveals that the bill will generate $409.2 billion in additional taxes by 2019.
In addition, the Congressional Budget Office states that the bill also levies almost $69 billion more in penalties for those who fail to meet mandates to buy insurance.
The Journal of Accountancy boils down some of the tax hikes and penalty fees in H.R. 3590 and the Reconciliation Act – the highlights include:
Excise Tax on Uninsured Individuals – Individuals who fail to maintain minimum essential coverage will be subject to a penalty equal to $750. The fee for an uninsured individual under age 18 is one-half of the adult fee.
Excise Tax on High-Cost Employer Plans – The federal government would impose a 40% tax on the value of employer-sponsored health coverage exceeding certain thresholds. Those levels are projected to be $8,500 for self only and $23,000 for any other level by the year 2013. This excise was announced with fanfare by the White House and labor unions in January and remains in the final bill.
Increase in additional tax on distributions from Health Savings Accounts and Archer Medical Savings Accounts not used for qualified medical expenses – An increase from 10% to 20% on taxes of money in a health savings account not used for qualified medical expenses. For Archer medical savings accounts, an increase from 15% to 20%.
Additional Hospital Insurance Tax on High-Income Taxpayers – High income tax payers, making on a joint return over $250,000 and a standard return over $200,000, are required to pay an additional 0.5% of wages. This applies to both self-employed, and regularly employed individuals.
Fees on Health Plans – A fee applied to all health insurance providers based upon net premiums and any third party fees associated with the administration of those programs. The fees will total $6.7 billion annually. This figure begins at $8 billion in the Reconciliation Act and rises to $14.3 billion by 2018.
Tax on Indoor Tanning Services – The act imposes a 10% tax on amounts paid for indoor tanning services. Like a sales tax, the tax will be collected from the person tanning when payment for the tanning services is made.
Business Insider boils down 15 more tax hikes here – highlights include:
Tax on individuals without acceptable health care coverage – A 2.5% income tax on individuals who do not have health care coverage, limited to a cost less than the average national health care premium.
Excise tax on elective cosmetic medical procedures – A tax of 5% is levied upon the am mount paid for any cosmetic surgery. This does not include the need for such surgeries created by trauma or a disfiguring disease. If the tax is not collected by that professional completing the procedure, their business is still liable for the requirement.
The Reconciliation Act also legislates for the following surcharges: 1% surcharge on individuals making more than $350,000, 1.5% surcharge on individuals making more than $500,000, 5.4% surcharge on individuals making more than $1 million.
Yet more tax provisions in the bill are highlighted by INvestors Business Daily in their piece titled 20 Ways ObamaCare Will Take Away Our Freedoms – highlights include:
Taxes On Employers – If you are a large employer (defined as at least 101 employees) and you do not want to provide health insurance to your employee, then you will pay a $750 fine per employee (It could be $2,000 to $3,000 under the reconciliation changes) (Section 1513).
Taxes on Pharmaceutical Companies – The government will extract a fee of $2.3 billion annually from the pharmaceutical industry (Section 9008 (b)).
Taxes on medical device manufacturers – The government will extract a fee of $2 billion annually from medical device makers (Section 1405).
As a candidate and President, Barack Obama has had one core message for middle class Americans: I won’t raise your taxes.
By putting his name to the health care reform bill today he has swiftly put to bed any pretence that he would uphold that pledge (multi-trillion dollar bailouts aside).
While the new taxes on individuals are bad enough, the penalties imposed on pharmaceutical corporations, health insurers and employers are will inevitably serve as a double whammy as the hikes will undoubtedly be passed on to the general public in the form of higher costs.
“Simply, you have nationalized healthcare by proxy.” writes Jonah Goldberg of the LA Times.
“Insurance companies are now heavily regulated government contractors. Way to get big business out of Washington! They will clear a small, government-approved profit on top of their government-approved fees. Then, when healthcare costs rise — and they will — Democrats will insist, yet again, that the profit motive is to blame and out from this Obamacare Trojan horse will pour another army of liberals demanding a more honest version of single-payer.”
“The Obama administration has turned the insurance industry into the Blackwater of socialized medicine.” Goldberg concludes.
A swift dose of propaganda is sure to silence some critics. However, if the softly softly approach fails, the myriad of new taxes and regulations contained in the Obamacare bill will be aggressively enforced by no less than 16,500 new “combat trained” IRS agents armed to the teeth with shotguns, who will also closely scrutinize Americans’ income tax returns and be waiting to pounce should they find evidence of anyone trying to avoid paying for mandatory government health care.
Even if you agree with socialized health care in principle, the fact is that this will only benefit the insurance companies who wrote it. Meanwhile millions of Americans will be subjected to more taxation, harassment, and oppression at the hands of a federal government run amok. An out of control leviathan, hell-bent on an agenda to control every aspect of your life, as they lay in wait to exploit the momentum achieved through the passage of Obamacare by ramming through nightmare cap and tax levies to further financially castrate already beleaguered Americans.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Fox News Poll: 79% Say U.S. Economy Could Collapse
The latest Fox News poll finds that 79 percent of voters think it’s possible the economy could collapse, including large majorities of Democrats (72 percent), Republicans (84 percent) and independents (80 percent).
Most American voters believe it’s possible the nation’s economy could collapse, and majorities don’t think elected officials in Washington have ideas for fixing it.
The latest Fox News poll finds that 79 percent of voters think it’s possible the economy could collapse, including large majorities of Democrats (72 percent), Republicans (84 percent) and independents (80 percent).
Just 18 percent think the economy is "so big and strong it could never collapse."
Moreover, 78 percent of voters believe the federal government is "larger and more costly" than it has ever been before, and by nearly three-to-one more voters think the national debt (65 percent) is a greater potential threat to the country’s future than terrorism (23 percent).
Who has a plan for dealing with the economy?
Overall, 35 percent of voters think the Obama administration has a clear plan for fixing the economy, down from 42 percent last summer (July 21-22, 2009).
At the same time the number saying the White House doesn’t have a plan for the economy has increased from 53 percent in July to 62 percent in the new poll. That includes almost all Republicans (88 percent), two-thirds of independents (67 percent), as well as a third of Democrats (33 percent).
Even fewer people think Democrats in Congress (24 percent) and Republicans in Congress (16 percent) have clear plans to fix the economy.
There is a large gap in party support, as Democrats (46 percent) are significantly more likely than Republicans (25 percent) to think their party has a strategy for the economy.
The national telephone poll was conducted for Fox News by Opinion Dynamics Corp. among 900 registered voters from March 16 to March 17. For the total sample, the poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
"These results reveal a deep anxiety about the fragility of our economy, as voters face continued uncertainty about jobs and an expanding commitment to public sector spending," said Ernest Paicopolos, a principal of Opinion Dynamics.
Three in 10 American voters (30 percent) say they are comfortable with the size and role of the federal government right now, while 65 percent say the government has become too big and "is restricting American freedoms."
Sizable majorities of Republicans (84 percent) and independents (74 percent) think the government is too big, while just over half of Democrats (51 percent) are okay with the size of government.
Anti-Semitism: What is it?
Several of us among the incurably curious asked ourselves a simple question: what is anti-Semitism? That it must be written with a capital “S” says a lot.
Then we realized it also morphs. To that feature I can attest. In November 2002, I met a “John Doe” in London who proposed a research challenge. While meeting that challenge, I encountered various versions of anti-Semitism.
A colleague advised against this challenge. First he fretted at the criminal nature of what the research has since confirmed. Then he inquired about my safety. That said a lot.
The colleague was M.I.T. Professor Noam Chomsky. For his criticism of Israeli policy, he was attacked as a self-hating Jew. Were he not Jewish, doubtless he would have been an anti-Semite. For critics of Israel, those are the only two options. He cautioned me:
You’ll get the same thing: anti-Semitic, Holocaust denier, want to kill all the Jews, etc. It doesn’t matter what the facts are. Bear in mind that you are dealing with intellectuals, that is, what we call ‘commissars’ and ‘apparatchiks’ in enemy states.
Is anti-Semitism a geopolitical strategy? If so, for what purpose? Character assassination?
Ten months ago, I met with Professor William Robinson on the University of California Santa Barbara campus. We met soon after he was attacked by the Anti-Defamation League and its network.
Robinson had read Guilt By Association, the first release based on this research. His question mirrored Prof. Chomsky’s concern: “Are they going to kill me?” he asked. Who are They? Those who attack anyone critical of Israeli policy.
Anti-Semitism—A License to Kill?
For his class on globalization, Robinson provided an email link to a photo essay critical of Israeli policy. The essay had been circulating online for weeks. When two students complained to the ADL, its attack troops insisted on Robinson’s removal while its national network urged alumni to threaten the withholding of gifts and bequests to the university.
Word quickly spread among academics nationwide. That time-critical ADL strategy silenced on-campus criticism of the Israeli assault on Gaza. Is it anti-Semitic to suggest that’s how anti-Semitism works?
When the Anti-Defamation League intimidates on a national scale, does anti-Semitism morph into something even more sinister? The Gaza assault killed 1,400, including 400 Palestinian children. That slaughter was scheduled during America’s political and media “down time”—between Christmas 2008 and the January 2009 inaugural of Barack Obama.
Is it anti-Semitic to suggest a strategic motive behind the timing of Israel’s latest savagery?
Then there’s the motive for 911. Is it anti-Semitic to raise that taboo subject? Ask those members of the 911 Commission who objected—successfully—when the chair and vice-chair proposed hearings on the motivation for that high-profile provocation.
Instead, Americans were left to cope with the results of an overwrought reaction to an unexplained mass murder too quickly blamed on “Islamo” fascism. Only now can we see the full costs in blood and treasure of a war waged on fixed intelligence and false pretenses.
The fiscal tab alone is projected to total $3 Trillion. That includes the future costs of military pensions, disabilities, record-level post-traumatic stress, suicides and so forth.
All that money is borrowed, a first for an American war. The interest cost could reach $700 billion. Is it anti-Semitic to mention here that debt is always the prize?
At the end of WWII, the victorious U.S. was home to 50% of the world’s productive power. Our bonds were gilt-edged and remained so for two generations. Now we are widely hated, our credibility is shot, our credit rating is slipping and our economy teeters on a meltdown.
Is it anti-Semitic to ask, “What happened?”
Is it anti-Semitic to report that the so-called “mastermind” behind 911 cited as his motive the U.S.-Israeli relationship?
Would it be anti-Semitic to ask for an accounting of the “but for” costs of this relationship?
But for this “special relationship” what would be the current condition of the U.S.—financially, militarily, diplomatically, geopolitically? Would the computation of those costs be an exercise in anti-Semitism? How about future costs?
Is it Anti-Semitic to call for a New 911 Commission?
America was misled to wage war in Iraq. Who had a relationship with us privileged enough to succeed with such duplicity in plain sight?
Who had the means, motive, opportunity and—importantly—the stable nation state intelligence to deceive us from inside our own government? Is that question anti-Semitic?
We were betrayed. Does that betrayal trace to those who befriended us?
We were defrauded. Does that treason trace to those we were induced to trust?
As counsel to the U.S. Senate Finance Committee (1980-87), I crafted federal tax law governing funds under management. Those funds surged from $800 billion in 1980 to more than $17,000 billion by the spring of 2007.
Those tax policies created a vast pool of “money-on-autopilot.” Today’s consensus belief can be simply put: money should be allowed to pursue more of itself—freely.
The unspoken assumption is that money is smarter than people. That’s the generally accepted truth behind the finance-fixated obsession we now know as “economics.”
Legions of consensus-touting consultants insist that this One True Faith guide lawmaking worldwide. By law, financial freedom became a proxy for personal freedom. Tribunals under the World Trade Organization may yet enforce that worldview globally.
How did such a narrow perspective become a widely agreed-to mindset? How were we induced to set America’s course by those values peculiar to money?
Rather than the civil rights refrain, “Let my people go,” the consensus refrain is “Let my money go.” Were we induced by a subculture within a subculture…within a subculture to freely embrace the very money myopic mindset that now endangers our freedom?
This mindset first surfaced as the “Chicago model” before morphing over decades into the “Washington” consensus.
How were we as a nation induced to brand democracy with a point of view that, by law, displaces those values not denominated in money? Is that an anti-Semitic question?
Shutting Down Debate
Early on in this challenge, I included the noun “Jew” in a Google search. I received in return an automated response from the Anti-Defamation League implying I was an anti-Semite.
Why?
More importantly, how did a Google response appear in my email inbox—automatically—from the Anti-Defamation League?
The ADL network conducts trainings for law enforcement under recently enacted federal hate crimes legislation. By my use of a common noun in an online search, am I now identified in a database as wanting to kill all the Jews?
Mark Yudoff, president of the University of California, could have intervened in the on-campus events that caused Professor Robinson to fear for his life. He declined. Richard Blum, chair of the state’s Board of Regents, could have intervened. He too declined.
Judith Yudoff is the immediate past international president of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism representing 760 synagogues. Blum’s wife, U. S. Senator Diane Feinstein, chairs the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Is it anti-Semitic to report these facts?
My apologies. Clearly I don’t yet grasp what anti-Semitism is. Thus I throw the challenge to you the reader: what is it? Together perhaps we can sort this out.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)