Dual-citizen nominee's lifetime benefit to Israel comes at a heavy cost to America
by Grant F. Smith / December 26th, 2013
The rushed campaign to insert Stanley Fischer straight from his position leading Israel’s central bank into the number two spot at the Federal Reserve has allowed little time for research into the appointee’s career or for informed public debate about his record. Like the failed recent Obama administration-Israel lobby pincer move to ram approval for U.S. military strikes on Syria through Congress, avoiding such due diligence through velocity may actually be the only means for successful Senate confirmation.
Some of Fischer’s accomplishments – from co-authoring a seminal textbook on macroeconomics to handling economic crisis at …
The National Research Council of the National Academies (NRCNA) has pre-published (available to the public as of December 2013), an extensive 200-pg study: “Abrupt Impacts of Climate Change, Anticipating Surprises.”
The goal of the report is to prepare society to anticipate the ‘otherwise unanticipated’ before it occurs, including abrupt changes to the ocean, atmosphere, ecosystems and high latitude regions. The NRCNA time scale for “abrupt climate change” is defined as years-to-decades.
“The history of climate on the planet— as read in archives such as tree rings, ocean sediments, and ice cores— is punctuated with large changes that occurred rapidly, over the course …
The entire NSA and Surveillance Society has wrangled humanity
by Paul Haeder / December 25th, 2013
It’s the 25th, and I am thinking about my buddy Jacob. He’s 25, riddled with PTSD, Battle of Fallujah, Marines, young spirited, radicalized at boot camp and then in country. It was a big scam, but one that ate at his heart. Scam, lie, bullshit war, and now, another year goes by, and the Gitmo madness of our cognitively sapped politicians, intellectuals, rot-gut CEOs and media moguls.
We have the brass balls to deny extended unemployment benefits over the Xmas break, these pieces of human depravity, bankers all, rotten private welfare queens, these CEOs running government, these insurance agents running our …
2013 has expectedly been a terrible year for several Arab nations. It has been terrible because the promise of greater freedoms and political reforms has been reversed, most violently in some instances, by taking a few countries down the path of anarchy and complete chaos. Syria and Egypt are two cases in point.
Syria has been hit the hardest. For months, the United Nations has maintained that over 100,000 people have been killed in the 33 months of conflict. More recently, the pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights concluded that at least 125,835, of which more than third of them are …
To counteract torrential public uproar, judicial skewering, and unexpectedly sharp presidential panel scrutiny, the one-time National Security Agency has reportedly kept its acronym but changed its name and image. According to undisclosed sources, NSA will, in the new year, stand for No Spying Allowed, in a strategic ploy to keep intact its data-war against terrorism without offending Constitutional niceties. An unnamed senior Democratic adviser confided, “Is this rocket science? What kind of backwater beacon of democracy can’t balance a little phone freedom with a lot of security? It’s not like the NSA is some bulwark against fire-breathing terrorists armed with …
For those of us in the labour movement, tis the season to ponder what good our unions can do in the upcoming year and to renew our commitment to a key principle: What we desire for ourselves we wish for all.
At this time of year, while many of us focus on gifts, it is easy to desire the latest gadget, that new car or even a remodelled bathroom. But, most of us would agree, in the grand scheme of human priorities, certain fundamentals are more important than simply acquiring more things.
For example, decent housing, nutritious food, public education, a safe …
This month’s FDA guidance for reducing livestock antibiotics will actually make things worse, animal welfare and food activist groups are saying. “The FDA is using a garden hose on a forest fire,” says Farm Sanctuary Senior Policy Director Bruce Friedrich. The guidance is a “diversion” that pretends to address the problem of factory farm-driven antibiotic resistance while accomplishing nothing. Antibiotic resistant infections, widely seen as driven by factory farming, sicken 2 million a year in the US and kill 23,000, says the CDC. By asking drug makers to voluntarily renounce the use of antibiotics for livestock growth on their …
The big story of 2014 will be Iran. Of course, the big story of the early 21st century will never stop being US-China, but it’s in 2014 that we will know whether a comprehensive accord transcending the Iranian nuclear program is attainable; and in this case the myriad ramifications will affect all that’s in play in the New Great Game in Eurasia, including US-China.
As it stands, we have an interim deal of the P5+1 (the UN Security Council’s five permanent members plus Germany) with Iran, and no deal between the US and Afghanistan. So, once again, we have Afghanistan configured …
Swaddled in Baby Gap, little Jesus appears to be crying. Mary tries to gently rock him in her hands, certainly a great moment to remind viewers that you are in good hands with Allstate. The carpenter Joseph is trying to protect Mary and Jesus, he could certainly use the system he just won from our sponsor ADT. The cow you see behind them is brought to you by ConAgra, the donkey by Halliburton. The angels on high in the sky, magnificent 3D computer generated imagery, are from Pixar. Walt Disney has remixed the angel songs so they sing praise to …
December 23rd, 2013, marks the 100th anniversary of the Federal Reserve, warranting a review of its performance. Has it achieved the purposes for which it was designed?
The answer depends on whose purposes we are talking about. For the banks, the Fed has served quite well. For the laboring masses whose populist movement prompted it, not much has changed in a century.
Thwarting Populist Demands
The Federal Reserve Act was passed in 1913 in response to a wave of bank crises, which had hit on average every six years over a period of 80 years. The resulting economic depressions triggered a populist movement …
The international corporate media decided to maintain low profile, but for weeks Italy is revolting. From the northeast down to Sicily a movement called “Forconi” (dung forks) is rocking the country. Actually the Forconi, originating from Sicily, are only one component of the mobilization lending their name.
The demonstrations have started out on December 9 called for by autonomous organizations of the toiling masses (peasants, lorry drivers, small entrepreneurs, etc.) but included all sectors of the people hit by the crisis and especially by the sacrifices imposed by the European Union (EU).
Main instrument of struggle are road blocks: In some cases …
Why has this not made national headlines??? The Aircraft Carrier Ronald Reagan is nuclear powered. Radiation detection equipment did not pick up on this?? Why have these sailors and marines medical records been removed from permanent tracking. Criminal implications galore. This should be all over mainstream media. Someone please forward all these ene reports to the media…. Tepco is the lowest of snakes. Hari Kari for the lot of em!!
Should the primary purpose of Canadian foreign policy be the promotion of corporate interests?
Canada’s business class certainly seems to think so. And with little political or ideological opposition to this naked self-interest, Harper’s Conservatives seem only too happy to put the full weight of government behind the promotion of private profits.
Recently, the Conservatives announced that “economic diplomacy” will be “the driving force behind the Government of Canada’s activities through its international diplomatic network.” According to their Global Markets Action Plan (GMAP), “All diplomatic assets of the Government of Canada will be marshalled on behalf of the private sector to increase …
A cosmic mistake. What else but that? Botched, or straight out never-meant-to-be, time appointment between two seasons of another kind, misaligned, each its variant position in Time and Space, collided in some weird quirk (fate? fluctuation in the way of all things? cunning trick of Cosmic Mind?), resulting in blood-splashed vinyl, chrome and asphalt at the sharpest, though not the most dangerous, twist of Dead Man’s Curve.
Reason being questionable, we questioned whether reason could be reasonable (or questioned) at all.
Others, convinced fleet magic had been indeed made manifest, had their fun and laughed themselves to sleep.
You’re not supposed to be so blind with patriotism that you cannot face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says It.
–Malcolm X
I have been reading political commentary on Black Agenda Report (BAR) regularly of late. The site, which purveys a black leftist perspective, regularly excoriates President Obama, as well they should. BAR has become a trusted source in my quest to understand history and current events. This is the home of the real left, not the pseudo left that pervades the corporate airwaves masquerading as champions of equality. Here, no one is paying homage to Obama …
It is freezing cold in Kiev, legendary city of golden domes on the banks of Dnieper River – cradle of ancient Russian civilisation and the most charming of East European capitals. It is a comfortable and rather prosperous place, with hundreds of small and cosy restaurants, neat streets, sundry parks and that magnificent river. The girls are pretty and the men are sturdy. Kiev is more relaxed than Moscow, and easier on the wallet. Though statistics say the Ukraine is broke and its people should be as poor as Africans, in reality they aren’t doing too badly, thanks to their …
Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee. — Genesis 3:18
Hot tea hit the eyes of Palestinian Member of the Knesset Ahmad Tibi on December 19, 2013. The violent act was perpetrated by Tziyon Vaknin, a Jewish man who opposed the protest against the Bedouins ((Derived from an Arabic word for semi-arid desert, “Bedouin” is a term designating members of a large number of Arab tribes. Egypt features a 400,000 Bedouin population, mainly in the Sinai Peninsula; while Israel has 200,000 Bedouin citizens living in the Negev Desert and a smaller number in the Galilee. In …
Conceptually, Madiba A to Z: The Many Faces of Nelson Mandela (Jacana Media, (South Africa), Seven Stories Books (United States), 2013) appears to be a simplistic format, but thankfully, the book is both thoughtful and inclusive. Written by Danny Schechter, it is connected to the recent release of the movie, Long Walk to Freedom, and Schechter’s forthcoming documentary film, Inside Mandela: The Making and Meaning of Nelson Mandela’s Story. Topical sections are broad and eclectic, but it is Schechter’s willingness, using interviews with Mandela comrades, journalists, scholars, and actors in the film, to tell Madiba’s story(s), the …
Following the Vietnam War, US imperial intervention passed through several phases: In the immediate aftermath, the US government faced a humiliating military defeat at the hands of the Vietnamese liberation forces and was under pressure from an American public sick and tired of war.Imperial military interventions, domestic espionage against opponents and usual practice of fomenting coups d’état (regime change) declined.
Slowly, under President Gerald Ford and, especially President ‘Jimmy’ Carter, an imperial revival emerged in the form of clandestine support for armed surrogates in Southern Africa — …
One thought alone preoccupies the submerged mind of Empire: how not to end, how not to die, how to prolong its era. By day it pursues its enemies. It is cunning and ruthless, it sends its bloodhounds everywhere. By night it feeds on images of disaster: the sack of cities, the rape of populations, pyramids of bones, acres of desolation.
? J.M. Coetzee, Waiting for the Barbarians
Nobody quite knows how it started. The etymology is traceable to the Ancient Greeks, but it probably began earlier, with spats between combative cave-dwellers or disgruntled nomads. The Greeks, who spawned such lofty rhetors as …
Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is relevant these days with many in Congress playing the role of Scrooge before he was visited by the Christmas spirits. Dickens was greatly concerned about the plight of children forced to work under dreadful conditions and about the lives of the poor in Britain under industrial capitalism in the 1840s.
Pope Francis recently echoed these ideas when he expressed concern about unfettered capitalism. The Pope also called on world leaders to address poverty and growing inequality. Specifically, he said:
In this context, some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged …
Two distinctly different Americans with distinctly similar, independent thinking and progressive values passed away last week. The great accounting professor Abraham Briloff (age 96) who relentlessly and brilliantly took apart the failures of his profession to insist on honest and ethical corporate accounting, and Tom Laughlin (age 82), the jolting producer and star of the Billy Jack films who broke the Hollywood industry’s rules with sagas of fighting for justice. Although they never knew each other, they both championed fair play and courage to face the grim realities of the day.
It was exhilarating to read Professor Briloff’s (Baruch College in …
The war of narratives shaped itself as a “slam dunk” win for the Palestinian people and had the potential to change the lineup of forces in the struggle for a just solution to the Middle East crisis. After all, unlike the Zionists, the Palestinians are a singular people, speak a common language, have common customs, and lived a shared history. They inhabited the area for centuries, if not for millennia, and tilled and watered the land to which they had legal title. Western nations restructured the Middle East, denied the Palestinians a country, and placed them in a …
This is a reply to Slavoj Zizek’s article “Mandela’s Socialist Failure” published online in The Stone (a New York Times maintained philosophy blog) on December 6, 2013. In eight pithy paragraphs Zizek endeavors to expose the real legacy of Mandela as opposed to his current “beatification.” The Catholic Church used to have someone play the role of Devil’s Advocate to denigrate the reputation of a person nominated to become a saint. Zizek has taken it upon himself to see to it that Mandela’s “beatification” does not progress to full fledged “sainthood.”
Zizek’s mantra is that “Mandela was not Mugabe” — the …
"But I'll know my song well before I start singing"
by Phil Rockstroh / December 20th, 2013
According to a recent, exhaustive study commissioned by the US Department of Energy and headed by a scientific team from the U.S. navy, by the summer of 2015, the Arctic Ocean could be bereft of ice, a phenomenon that will engender devastating consequences for the earth’s environment and every living creature on the planet.
Yet, recently, Chuck Hagel, US Defense Secretary, said (in defiance of common sense and even a modicum of sanity) that the US military will escalate its presence in the Arctic, due to the fact that “[the] potential for tapping what may be as much as a …
Seeing her face on the TV screen, one is struck by her beauty. It is the face of an angel, pure and innocent.
Then she opens her mouth, and what pours out is vile and ugly, the racist message of the extreme right. Like seeing a cherub parting its lips and revealing the teeth of a vampire.
Ayelet Shaked Ayelet Shaked may be the beauty queen of the present Knesset. Her name is enticing: Ayelet means gazelle, Shaked means almond. But she is the instigator of some of the …
More than twelve years have passed since 9/11 happened. Although the 9/11 Commission produced a voluminous “9/11 Commission Report”, it did not provide answers to central questions concerning the circumstances of this horrendous crime. Critical observers have noted numerous glaring omissions, contradictions, anomalies and misrepresentations in this report. Even the Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the 9/11 Commission admitted in a joint book they later published, that their report was deficient in many ways and that the Commission had been lied to by government agencies. One of the reactions to this deficient report was the emergence of a “truth movement”, which …
The United States Federal Reserve announced Wednesday that it will start drawing down (i.e. “tapering”) its multibillion-dollar quantitative easing policies in 2014.
The Fed will begin tapering its $85 billion monthly purchases of Treasuries and Treasury mortgage-backed securities by $5 billion each starting in January.
100 years ago, this December, the United States Congress created a central bank today, we know it as the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States. What most people don’t know is that the bank isn’t a federal entity and candidly, it really has nothing in reserves.
Is the Federal Reserve good for the United States? …
Along the second half of the 20th century many Jewish intellectuals, activists and artists positioned themselves at the forefront of Western advocacy of immigration and multiculturalism. Occasionally we were also expected to believe that immigration, tolerance, pluralism and multiculturalism are intrinsic to Jewish culture and thought.
But as the West became gradually aware of the scale of Israeli racism and intolerance towards migrant communities, more than just a few intellectuals were courageous enough to point at a clear discrepancy between the progressive ideas Jews claim to represent and what their Jewish State happens to be. There aren’t many countries …
