Electronic Pen

MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Consistent with the Wall Street standard operating procedure of privatized profits and socialized risks, the Bank of America has allegedly transferred 75 trillion dollars in potentially toxic derivatives to enable the money to be covered by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).

What does this mean in plain English?

It means that we, the taxpayers, are once again insuring the casino gambling financial bets of another bank too big to fail. So, while the Tea Party and the Republicans in Congress rail about cutting taxes, they are saying nary a word about taxpayers covering the shady financial gambling of big banks. The potential loss of $75 trillion, insured by government money, dwarfs budget deficit "austerity" talks.

And the Bank of America - although it is the largest US bank in total financial assets according to Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) - is not a good investment for taxpayers right now, even though it recently showed a profit on paper. According to Bloomberg:

Moody's Investors Service downgraded Bank of America's long-term credit ratings Sept. 21, cutting both the holding company and the retail bank two notches apiece. The holding company fell to Baa1, the third-lowest investment-grade rank, from A2, while the retail bank declined to A2 from Aa3....

Bank of America's rating is now four grades below the one Moody's assigned to JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), the biggest U.S. bank by deposits at midyear, and a level below the rating given to Citigroup Inc. (C), the third-biggest. Bank of America is the only U.S. lender that lacks a rating of A3 or higher among the five firms listed by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency as having the biggest derivatives books.

So the free market isn't really "free." Wall Street depends upon hard-working Americans to keep them from the negative results of taking bad risks in an effort to turn large profits and big bonuses. If you own a small business and take such risks and they fail, you go bankrupt. If you run a Wall Street bank "too big to fail," average Americans cover your losses. Call it Wall Street socialism.

Ominously, in regards to that 75 trillion dollars that we are now backing with our dollars, a Reuters columnist recently wrote a commentary headlined, "Is Bank of America preparing for a Chapter 11?"

It would be great to go to Vegas and have all your gambling debts covered by the house. That's the Wall Street way - and the US government is the house.

The taxpayers are holding up Wall Street, not the other way around.

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NIKOLAS KOZLOFF FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

After a couple of weeks trying to find their groove, Occupy Wall Street protesters are now on a high and are set to take their movement to the next level. First came the announcement that New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg would not dismantle the encampment at Liberty Plaza, and then, as anti-capitalist demonstrators took to the streets in cities as far afield as Madrid and Rome, activists may have sensed that Occupy Wall Street stood to become truly global in scope. With the mushrooming of protest across the United States, corporate executives are sitting up and taking notice, while both the Republicans and Democrats have been forced to recognize the growing power of demonstrations. With the 2012 presidential election just a year away, it is not inconceivable that Occupy Wall Street will exert a political impact upon the campaign.

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ANN DAVIDOW FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

It is decision-making time in our country - - not just time to pick the right candidates for the upcoming election but for beginning a process that will illustrate just what kind of people we are. The sad part of this exercise is that we are up against people whose moral imperatives stretch the limits of truth and decency until they are so weak and ineffectual they could be drowned in a bathtub.

Leaders and wannabe power brokers fail to pose realistic solutions, choosing instead to let politics guide them through a thicket of complicated options. And having chosen partisanship over rational processes they commit us to dead-end policies that limit our ability to develop thoughtful procedures that might actually lead to more fruitful endeavors. Partisan maneuvering is a shaky premise upon which to build a viable governing structure and it keeps us from approaching our condition from a common-sense perspective. Having a political point of view shouldn't mean we give up conducting our lives in a thoughtful manner. But today too many of us seem to have chosen the easy way out of adopting an ideological premise and sticking with it to the bitter end regardless of what evidence might otherwise suggest.

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MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

In his new book, available from Truthout with a contribution, Glenn Greenwald states it bluntly: "The central promise of the American founding - that all would stand equal before the rule of law no matter what other political and economic inequality was allowed - has been abandoned."

Moreover, the ruling elite and the wealthiest Americans have become exempt from a uniform standard of justice, Greenwald argues in "With Liberty and Justice for Some":

Instead, the United States now has the exact opposite of a single set of laws before which everyone is equal. It has an entrenched two-tiered system of justice: the country's most powerful political and financial elites are virtually immunized from the rule of law, empowered to commit felonies with full-scale impunity and to act without any constraints, while the politically powerless are imprisoned with greater ease and in far greater numbers than in any other country on the planet.

According to an October 19 Reuters article: "Citigroup Inc will pay $285 million to settle charges that it defrauded investors who bought toxic housing-related debt that the bank bet would fail, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said on Wednesday."

Please notice the word defrauded in the description of Citigroup's action. The law is divided into basically two areas: civil and criminal. Defraud generally is an action that falls into the criminal class of law. Throughout the follow-up to the near collapse of the American economy caused by Wall Street's defrauding, mismanagement, malfeasance and greed, the basic reaction of the Obama administration has been to let the perpetrators of a crime so large it defies comprehension go free. Not only have they gone free, but many of them are still in charge of nearly monopolistic financial entities that, in many practices, amount to - at least in part - criminal enterprises that gouge consumers and defraud investors alike.

Yes, a few "guppies" have been prosecuted, and financial firms like Citigroup have paid some fines that they will just recover in write-offs and more financial scams. It's not just a slap on the wrist; it's giving the appearance of punishment, when it is really no skin off the hide of the criminally negligent banks. Furthermore, Citigroup is claiming -- and the SEC isn't disputing -- that it clears them of liability for other charges against the bank. It's a public relations move by the SEC, not a finding with any legal repercussions - for the firm or for individuals.

For weeks, under orders from Mayor Bloomberg - and with the likely cooperation of the FBI - protesters have been treated like criminals by a highly militarized police force. In essence, the New York Police Department has become a publicly paid security force to protect the "Masters of the Universe" on Wall Street, who have committed unfathomable crimes against the nation.

If you cash a bum check in many states - even if it's just for a few dollars in groceries - you can go to jail for years ("three strikes and your out"). But if you bring down an economy and keep engaging in fraud and high-risk schemes with other people's money, causing trillions of dollars in losses, you are a member of the privileged elite who enjoys a separate system of justice: one that lets you go free to pillage again.

Greenwald gets it right: "Courtrooms, indictments, and prisons are there for ordinary Americans, not for the ruling classes, and virtually never for our highest political leaders."

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BILL BERKOWITZ FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

There may be isolated incidents of anti-Semitism within the Occupy movement but there is little evidence that it is a driving force.

During an Occupy LA protest, Patricia McAllister, a substitute teacher with the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), told Reason TV that "the Zionist Jews who are running these big banks and our federal reserve -- which is not run by the federal government -- they need to be run out of this country." In a later interview with Fox11, she said "Jews have been run out of 109 countries throughout history, and we need to run them out of this one."

Whatever else she may be, McAllister, who was not a speaker at the rally and who was subsequently fired by the District for her comments, has become the poster child for the right; proof positive that the Occupy Movement is brimming with anti-Semites.

Are there a significant number of participants in the Occupy Movement engaged in anti-Semitic behavior? Where is the anti-Semitism coming from? How does a "leaderless" movement deal with its outliers?

Just as it was important to point out the anti-Semitic and racist signs that were visible at Tea Party rallies and events, it is important to scrutinize the Occupy Movement as well. It is also important to note that incidents of Tea Party racism were broadly spread across the movement. (See "Race and the Tea Party Movement" -- http://blog.buzzflash.com/contributors/2159.)

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SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

WASHINGTON, Oct. 20 - Hundreds of defense contractors that defrauded the U.S. military received more than $1.1 trillion in Pentagon contracts during the past decade, according to a Department of Defense report prepared for Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Sanders (I-Vt.) called the report "shocking." He said aggressive steps must be taken to ensure taxpayer dollars aren't wasted.

"The ugly truth is that virtually all of the major defense contractors in this country for years have been engaged in systemic fraudulent behavior, while receiving hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money," said Sanders. "With the country running a nearly $15 trillion national debt, my goal is to provide as much transparency as possible about what is happening with taxpayer money."

The report detailed how the Pentagon paid $573.7 billion during the past 10 years to more than 300 contractors involved in civil fraud cases that resulted in judgments of more than $1 million, $398 billion of which was awarded after settlement or judgment for fraud.  When awards to "parent" companies are counted, the Pentagon paid more than $1.1 trillion during the past 10 years just to the 37 top companies engaged in fraud.

Another $255 million went to 54 contractors convicted of hard-core criminal fraud in the same period. Of that total, $33 million was paid to companies after they were convicted of crimes.

Some of the nation's biggest defense contractors were involved.

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MARK KARLIN, EDITOR FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

A recent article in the New York Observer highlights the ongoing challenge Occupy Wall Street faces in preventing the New York Police Department (NYPD) and perhaps FBI infiltrators from creating acts of violence that will turn the nation against the movement.

Mayor Bloomberg and the FBI know that nothing will change the mood of support for Occupy Wall Street faster than having them portrayed as a "violent mob." So, there have been ongoing incidents of what appear to be provocations by the police or infiltrators to create an image of an unruly group of lawbreakers. (Just remember the Brooklyn Bridge incident for one.)

BuzzFlash at Truthout warned of this likely ongoing effort in a commentary on October 4, "The NYPD and FBI Are Trying to Infiltrate Wall Street Protest to Discredit It: Of This You Can Be Sure."

Among the recurring reports of police infiltration and provocateurs is an account today of the incident that led to the NYPD arrest of more than 20 protesters trying to close their Citibank accounts over the weekend.

One of the persons arrested at the Citibank branch, Marshall Garrett, told the Village Voice:

But what was unknown to us and to a lot of people that day, including those in Times Square, was that there were undercover cops already there, paid to be disruptive and to be loud. One undercover cop present [at Citi] was louder than the entire group.

He arrested one of the protestors outside, and slammed her into the wall, and pushed her back into the bank. We all saw him at the precinct with us. He was laughing with the fellow white shirt cops, telling them about what we'd been saying, basically. It was a bit startling how inside their information was - how they were being paid to go to these protests and put us in situations where we'd be arrested and not be able to leave.

In fact, you can see one of the undercover police officer provocateurs in this alarming video. Watch through to the point where this plainclothes NYPD cop arrests a young woman, who is a Citibank customer, for merely being outside the bank branch because she was involved in the protest, but not inside the branch building. It is quite chilling indeed. Four or five NYPD officers just make the woman disappear.

The biggest challenge for Occupy Wall Street will be to uproot covert efforts to discredit the movement by law enforcement agencies that are supposed to protect the Constitution instead of subverting it.

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PAUL BUCHHEIT FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

The sales tax on a pair of shoes is 6%. The sales tax on a financial transaction is 0%.

That's right, a struggling homeowner getting the kids ready for school is subsidizing the millionaire buyers of the high-risk derivatives and credit default swaps that nearly wrecked our economy. Meanwhile, the super-rich divert our attention from the injustice, claiming "class warfare" at any attempt to fix the system. And it needs fixing. Speculative purchases of financial transactions are subject only to a tiny fee that helps the Securities and Exchange Commission keep the lucrative system in place.

Legislators around the country, hesitant to take on their powerful friends in the corporate world, instead cut school budgets, services for the poor, and police departments while raising utility fees and sales taxes.

It's a lot easier to pick on the middle class than on the people who control the media.

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MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Maybe there's more to Mayor Bloomberg of New York backing down from having the New York Police Department (NYPD) eradicate Occupy Wall Street than his incestuous and profitable relationship with Wall Street (given his $19.5 billion in wealth from the financial industry and his "personal" link with the owners of Liberty Park).

Bloomberg has used the NYPD as a militarized occupation force in southern Manhattan to contain and suppress a group of Americans intent on outing the financial mismanagement of Wall Street. But he's in a fix.

Apparently, New Yorkers don't agree with the baronial mayor, who likes to give the appearance of being a "common man" from time to time.

The fifth paragraph of a New York Times article updating the mayor's continued thinly veiled disdain for the growing movement for accountability from the financial titans - and for a just society - reveals that the multibillionaire defender of oligarchical rule (after all, he is a role model in this area) is facing overwhelming opposition to his position:

A Quinnipiac University poll released on Monday found broad support for Occupy Wall Street; 72 percent of New York City voters, including 52 percent of Republicans, said the protesters should be able to stay as long as they wanted if they continued to obey the laws. The telephone survey, of 1,068 registered voters, was conducted from Thursday to Sunday.

Those are landslide numbers of New York City residents who support Occupy Wall Street protesters exercising their rights in a democracy.

In New York State, Bloomberg's use of a public police force to defend the entrenched, gluttonous and counterproductive-to-the-national-interest leadership and practices of much of the financial industry is also facing a stiff pushback, according to The Associated Press:

The push for a higher tax on New Yorkers making more than $1 million a year is getting fresh life with a new poll showing overwhelming support, a high-profile rally on Monday and the strengthening Occupy Wall Street protest in New York City.

The Siena College poll found 72 percent of New York voters support the tax to avoid further budget cuts. Just 26 percent oppose the proposal by powerful Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.

Mayor Bloomberg is using taxpayer money on deploying an occupying police force to try to close down a demonstration of taxpayers guaranteed in the Constitution.

He sounds a bit like King George just before the American Revolution.

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BILL BERKOWITZ FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Last month I wrote a piece for this website called "The Not So Stealth Campaign to Silence Critics of Religious Extremism" (http://blog.buzzflash.com/node/13036). The essence of the piece was to call attention to a column in USA Today by Mark I. Pinsky attacking researchers, writers, reporters and critics of two trending developments on the Christian right, Dominionism and the New Apostolic Reformation.

The liberal Pinsky -- as several conservative writers had done previously -- asserted that the NAR and other Dominionists were neither broad-based movements embraced by the evangelical community, nor, as some on the left were claiming - a particular political threat. In developing his argument, Pinsky demeaned critics and made the bizarre assertion that Pastor John Hagee and conservative Christian historian David Barton were marginal figures on the conservative evangelical landscape.

Pinsky's column, and a subsequent endorsement of his views by the Rev. Jim Wallis, the president of Sojourners and a person associated with more liberal religious leaders, led to the writing of an "An Open Letter to Jim Wallis from Writers about American Religion and Politics." The letter was signed onto by fourteen authors, journalists and bloggers that have written about these issues for years (http://www.talk2action.org/story/2011/10/6/11493/4209).

That letter resulted in a lively, albeit largely sequestered discussion on a number of websites.

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STEVEN JONAS, MD, MPH, FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

In The New York Times "Sunday Review" of Sept. 25, 2011, Michael Kazin, a co-editor of Dissent magazine, published an article entitled "Whatever Happened to the American Left?" It is drawn from a new book of his entitled American Dreamers: How the Left Changed a Nation.  In the article (full disclosure: I have not read the book, only the review that appeared in The Times Sunday Book Review on Sept. 18) Mr. Kazin attributed the aforementioned decline to a number of factors.  They included: unlike the (relatively) powerful left of the 1930s, the modern left, unlike the modern Right, has not been germinating for very long; in the 1970s they started leaving traditional "left" issues such as "class justice" for such things as rights for minorities and women; the failed promises of the Democratic Party, post pre-Viet Nam Lyndon Johnson; dependence on "politicians;" and "not reconnecting with ordinary Americans." So, you see, the "decline of the US left" is all the left's fault.

Well, historical developments like the decline, indeed the virtual disappearance of any real, socialistically-oriented left as real as its cousin, the "liberal/progressive" left, don't happen in an historical vacuum.  Indeed in this case it would appear that what the Right-wing, Corporate Power has done to the US left since the height of its power during the New Deal is the primary cause of its decline. Further it would appear that the failure of self-styled US leftists to recognize and come to grips with the amazingly powerful legal, legislative, and propagandistic forces that  the US Corporate Power mobilized against the left, and then organize to oppose it with strength, is also a major cause of the US left's decline.

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MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

When Andy Borowitz captures the truth of the moment, using satire, you know the ruling elite are on the defensive. There's something all too pathetically ironic about Borowitz's daily headline: "Libyan Government Warns NYPD to Exercise Restraint: Urges NATO Action to Protect American Dissidents."

In a riveting unmasking of hypocrisy, a YouTube video has appeared that masterfully shows the blatant hypocrisy of President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton in applying one standard for attacks on protesters overseas - and quite another in the US.

While Obama has given some lip service to the Occupy Wall Street movement, he has qualified that with an upholding of the status quo of a financial sector that cratered the US economy. And he has said nothing about the police brutality in attempts, particularly in New York, to suppress the "right of redress" protests.

Nicholas Kristof wrote in The New York Times:

But anyone who believes in markets should be outraged that banks rig the system so that they enjoy profits in good years and bailouts in bad years.

The banks have gotten away with privatizing profits and socializing risks, and that's just another form of bank robbery.

Yet, President Obama even used Martin Luther King to project a narrative that it's really a bunch of "good people" on Wall Street who made a few mistakes. In his King memorial dedication speech on October 16, Obama predicted that if Martin Luther King were alive today, "I believe he would remind us that the unemployed worker can rightly challenge the excesses of Wall Street without demonizing all who work there."

First of all, this is not just an issue of struggling unemployed workers; it's an issue of a financial system that needs systemic reform. Second of all, it's not a minor issue of "excesses" as if the chairman of the Bank of America had an extra bottle of champagne for dinner on the company account. It is, as Kristof writes, "another form of bank robbery." Obama, his Treasury secretary and his attorney general are doing very little to prosecute those who conducted the bank robberies, but they are tolerating the arrests of those who are witnesses to the crime.

The reality is that Obama believes in this financial system, even when it has de facto disproved that it can offer much to growing the American economy. It is fossilized, state-sanctioned and subsidized greed. For Obama, who is looking to a record campaign war chest to offset low ratings and a stalled economy, Wall Street money is essential.

The duopoly of the American two-party system, as this video reconfirms, will go to war for the rights of protesters overseas, but champions putting them in jail at home.

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JIM BLOCK FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Light at the End?

Finally, serious opposition has emerged against the full-scale, right wing and corporate takeover of American society. The initial target of Occupy Wall Street outrage is the dismantling of the New Deal by the emerging plutocracy. Defending the American people's right to basic social welfare, government regulation, and full employment against growing dominance by the rich and powerful is a hopeful beginning. To regain the political initiative, however, progressives must reignite the broader demand for a just society.

The deep popular discontent, symbolized by the growing protests, represents an unparalleled opportunity for progressive renewal. Americans yearn more than ever for a more humane society. They want communities where individual fulfillment is cultivated by a nurturing childhood and with meaningful work. They want a social safety net and a restored social fabric to provide security and connectedness.

Progressives must move beyond their cautious pragmatism. Once they retreated during the Reagan era from seeking a more just and emancipated society, they were limited to opposing the conservative onslaught. To heed this call, progressives must go beyond the self-defeating assumptions of the past: the false choice between social justice and individual freedom. The institutions that protect our basic social needs have the power to nurture our full human and democratic potential.

Given the scale of contemporary society, America's once vibrant individualism can only flourish - despite what conservatives want us to believe - when the public sector creates the conditions for self-realization, social justice, and democracy. This essay offers a new "deep frame" in George Lakoff's terms, a "new moral narrative" for the regeneration of progressive initiative. Conservatives will call this expression of our common will a new feudalism, for they hope to derail the only - popular - alternative to corporate and organizational authoritarianism.

Challenging Progressive Assumptions

Why did twentieth century, social reform lose momentum? The right acquired power by playing on widespread fears of organizational society. Manipulating the traditional myth of the unrestrained individual, they blame every social ailment and personal limit on public constraints. Yet, progressives and liberals have equally associated freedom and democracy with a simpler time of individuality, local government, and accessible opportunity. The choices were either complicity in the conservative illusion, or social justice at the cost of European-style statism. Unable to connect with popular aspirations for genuine individualism and an accountable public, the movement for change collapsed.

Progressives must learn from history. The New Deal also refused to link freedom and opportunity with a sustained public role. Rather than create significant alternatives to the market, government was a necessary, but temporary evil to help people back on their feet. Not surprisingly, once these programs brought about the modern middle class, Republicans intensified their theological campaign to root out, rather than consort with such evil. Progressives could only watch as generations of Americans boosted into the middle class hearkened to their rechristening as self-made entrepreneurs, and began cutting away the floor - the public sector - from beneath their own feet.

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A BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT NEWS ALERT

Washington - Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said the Commodity Futures Trading Commission should adopt a rule with real teeth to limit oil speculators, not a watered-down measure set for a vote on Tuesday.

The commission is slated to consider a rule that Sanders said "will do little or nothing" to limit traders who artificially drive up gasoline and home heating oil prices. "At a time when the American people are experiencing extremely high oil and gas prices, this would be simply unacceptable," Sanders wrote in a letter to Chairman Gary Gensler.

Sanders said the weak proposal before the commission falls short of what Congress intended in last year's Wall Street reform law. The Dodd-Frank Act required the commission to finalize rules on speculators by last Jan. 17. "If the CFTC had done its job and obeyed the law, consumers would have received real relief at the gas pump during the past nine months, particularly during the summer driving season. Unfortunately, this did not happen."

The commission still could act in time to substantially lower heating oil prices this winter. "This is more important now than ever," Sanders said. He cited new projections by the Energy Information Administration that heating oil prices in the Northeast will set a new record this winter and climb to more than $3.70 a gallon. Vermonters could pay up to $4 a gallon for heating oil this winter, he added. "If these projections are accurate, it will be harder than ever for Vermonters and nearly 7 million other Americans who heat their homes with fuel oil to stay warm this winter. We need the CFTC to be vigilant and make sure that this does not happen," Sanders said.

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TONY PEYSER FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

This makes Herman's "maverick" status
Officially become a joke:
In any taste test, we can now assume that
He'd shun Pepsi for Koch.

http://news.yahoo.com/long-ties-koch-brothers-key-cains-campaign-110518961.html

PAUL BUCHHEIT FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

With 99% of America standing up to them, the super-rich probably don't feel very funny right now. But they have a history of humorous statements, as demonstrated by Mitt Romney's reference to Occupy Wall Street as "class warfare."

Yes, Mitt, class warfare has been waged since 1980, as almost
all of America's new income has gone to the richest 1%, who have tripled
their share, mainly through tax cuts and deregulation. If the average
American family had just kept up with U.S. productivity, it would be
making almost DOUBLE what it is now.

More conservative humor can be found in the statement "Don't tax the rich
- they're job creators," which ignores the fact that the total
unemployment/underemployment rate has increased from 15% to 30% in just
five years while middle-class household wealth has dropped 36%.

Then there's the notion of downtrodden rich people. Someone making
"$200,000 is not a rich person,"stated Barbara Lang, president of the D.C.
Chamber of Commerce. "$500,000 is not a lot of money, particularly if
there is no bonus," said James F. Reda, director of a compensation
consulting firm. "In some parts of the country," $250K "is middle class,"
suggested CNN reporter Kiran Chetry.

While the rich are just getting by, the poor, according to some
conservatives, are doing quite well. "What are they complaining about?"
asked CNN's Carol Costello, citing a Heritage Foundation study that
suggested poor Americans were reasonably comfortable. Sen. Orrin Hatch
(R-Utah) claimed that "The poor...need to share some of the
responsibility." Berkshire Hathaway's Charlie Munger got right to the
point: the poor should just "suck it up and cope."

Taxes, while usually not funny, bring out the best in corporate
spokespeople. Like Anne Eisele of General Electric, which paid no taxes
from 2008 to 2010: "G.E. is committed to acting with integrity in relation
to our tax obligations...GE did not pay US federal taxes last year because
we did not owe any." And Ken Cohen of Exxon Mobil, which paid 2% in taxes
from 2008 to 2010: "Any claim we don't pay taxes is absurd...ExxonMobil is
a leading U.S. taxpayer." And John Watson of Chevron, part of an industry
with the lowest federal tax rate: "The oil and gas industry pays its fair
share in taxes" And Paul Ryan on Boeing, which paid no U.S. taxes on over
$4 billion of income in 2010: "Their tax rate is extremely high, far
higher than their competitors.

Next is the Orwellian "war is peace" humor, as in the claim by Mitch
McConnell and Mitt Romney that tax cuts increase revenue and help to
reduce the deficit. And the contention by Mackubin Thomas Owens of the
Foreign Policy Research Institute that high gas prices cause low gas
prices (because of the increased incentive to open up new drilling sites).

Finally, this writer's personal favorite, full-delusional humor. Lloyd
Blankfein, chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs, assures us that "Everybody
should be, frankly, happy...the financial system led us into the crisis
and it will lead us out."

It's all so funny it hurts.

Paul Buchheit is the founder and developer of social justice and
educational websites (UsAgainstGreed.org, PayUpNow.org,
RappingHistory.org), and the editor and main author of "American Wars:
Illusions and Realities" (Clarity Press). He can be reached at
paul@UsAgainstGreed.org.

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ANN DAVIDOW FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Well here we are in another of those wasteful congressional meet-ups where endless talk adds up to meaningless partisan chatter - - another week of inflammatory rhetoric that lacks clarity and fails to define the main objectives of our national debate. How can so much sound and fury add up to so little substance and yet demand so much media attention? What makes the pretense that surrounds our political deliberations resonate in the minds of the electorate even when, in the aftermath of all the verbal nonsense, we are left asking ourselves ‘how's that again?"

There is growing concern about the part money plays in deciding our elections. Recent decisions that equate cash with free speech have turned our electoral processes into spending free-for-alls that fail to do justice to our system, no pun intended. Of equal concern should be the increasing emphasis on religion in our political world. However we came to occupy this twisted historical moment it is surely time we took ourselves out of the unhealthy fusion of religious fervor and ideological tumult.

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WALTER BRASCH FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Newspaper columnist Ann Coulter, spreading the lies of the extreme right wing, called the Occupy Wall Street protestors, "tattooed, body-pierced, sunken-chested 19-year-olds getting in fights with the police for fun." She claimed the protestors, now in the thousands in New York, are "directionless losers [who] pose for cameras while uttering random liberal clichés, lacking any reason or coherence." (Several hundred thousand of these "directionless losers" are expected to attend rallies in more than 650 cities, Oct. 15.)

Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), House majority leader, called the protest nothing more than "growing mobs," completely oblivious to his myriad statements that he supports "mobs" when they are from the Tea Party. Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney, tacking as far right as possible to avoid anyone thinking he was once a moderate, called the protest "dangerous."

Republican presidential contender Herman Cain, in a moment that demonstrated how out of touch he is with the economic reality of the five-year recession, argued, "Don't blame Wall Street, don't blame the big banks; if you don't have a job and you're not rich, blame yourself!"

Glenn Beck, too irrational even for Fox News, which terminated him less than two years after it tried to make him a TV superstar, told his radio audience, the protestors "will come for you and drag you into the streets and kill you."

Lauren Ellis of Mother Jones, at one time a cutting edge magazine for social justice, believed that the protestors have a "lack of focus." Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, wrote, "A protest without an objective is like a party or a picnic of the unemployed and the indolent. Unless you have an objective, what are you doing out there?"

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MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

According to the New York Times, Mayor Bloomberg's girlfriend, Diana L. Taylor, sits on the board of Brookfield Properties, the owner of Zucotti Park (AKA Liberty Park). But that's hardly the ownly tie that has resulted in Brookfield becoming an active partner in Bloomberg's efforts to close down Occupy Wall Street.

The current gambit of, in essence, closing the public headquarters of the movement under the guise of "cleaning up" the park, and then imposing rules that would prohibit anything other than pedestrian traffic and sitting on benches, is now delayed. (It had originally been scheduled for 7 AM EST Friday.)

Occupy Wall Street put out a call last night for people to join them in preventing the New York Police Department -- allegedly acting at the behest of Brookfield Properties -- from effectively shutting down the active "headquarters" of the anti-Wall Street corruption and economic inequality groundswell uprising.  In addition, the public advocate for New York City -- a position not well known out of Manhattan, but one with considerable influence in city politics -- challenged Bloomberg's coordinated effort with Brookfield to render inoperative the anti-Wall Street beachhead.

"Bill de Blasio, the city's public advocate," according to the New York Times, "had expressed concern over the city's actions as he inspected the park Thursday afternoon and listened to protesters' complaints."

Bloomberg had first tried to use the NYPD -- and perhaps others -- to infiltrate and perhaps bait the Occupy Wall Street protesters into some sort of violent act, which would turn public opinion against them, and allow him to use the sort of excessive police force employed in "The Battle of Seattle" several years ago to cut off the head of the populist surge that has put corporations and Wall Street on the defensive.  That didn't work, even though hundreds of people were arrested after claiming that the police led them onto the street level of the Brooklyn Bridge and then arrested them.

But plan "B" was for Brookfield Properties, which technically owns the public park as a result of it being built in return for zoning variations in the area, to "ask" for police help if plan "A" didn't pan out.

Just two weeks ago, Bloomberg -- worth $19.5 billion and whose fortune comes from an information software and device used by financial firms (along with a growing media empire, with an emphasis on business) -- spoke of a "sanitation crisis" in a rambling attack on Occupation Wall Street on a New York radio program. He implicitly threatened that he would close the site down.  Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Brookfield Properties was expressing "deep" concern about the sanitation conditions in the park.  This was not a coincidence: it was a public relations meme.

Newspaper accounts of the now delayed Zuccotti Park clean up generally accept that the City of New York was planning to have the NYPD arrest protesters who didn't clear the park as a response to a "request" from Brookfield Properties -- and it is true that there is such a written request.

But this is not Brookfield Properties acting on its own.  It could have done that a long time ago.  In fact it could have employed private security guards to clear the park of "temporary residents," by some legal interpretations of its rights as "owner" of the property.

Brookfield Properties is a multi-billion dollar commercial real estate company that is as tight as a tick with  Bloomberg and the Wall Street plutocracy.  It can't make a move in New York City to develop new projects without the approval of City Hall.  It didn't make a move on Zucotti Park (named after the chairman of Brookfield) until the mayor got his ducks in a row and his public relations and legal people felt they could use the "sanitation" ruse, while the mayor claimed -- for media consumption -- that he was in support of the constitutional right to protest. You can bet your last dollar that Brookfield Properties was asked to write its letter to City Hall at the time it did directly by City Hall.  The fact that the mayor's girlfriend is on the board of Brookfield is just symbolic icing on the cake of the oligarchy's symbiotic relationship.

However, due to factors already cited, and the strong legal possibility that the the NYPD could not be called in to Zucotti Park unless Brookfield Properties obtained a court order allowing for such a move, the mayor's office announced just before their scheduled de facto eviction that the police clear-out was being "delayed."

As BuzzFlash at Truthout noted in a commentary last week, "With the price of milk rising so high that many low-income New Yorkers can't afford it anymore, it's hardly comforting to know that...the priority of the multibillionaire mayor of New York is 'helping the banks.'"

Brookfield Properties does not make a move or a statement in regards to Zucotti Park without direction from Mayor Bloomberg's office.  Of this you can be certain.

Nearly every financial firm and multi-national corporation in America is relying on Bloomberg to be their fellow multi-billionaire point man in putting an end to this "insurrection," just like the British Tories tried to do with the American revolution.

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RICHARD POWER FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Burning Man isn't what you think it is. Well, OK, Burning Man is more than you think it is. Much more. There is a powerful, new narrative developing within the legend of Burning Man, one that moves beyond Black Rock City and into the daily lives of some dedicated Burners.

What is this new narrative? And what does it offer those working to overcome the challenges of this troubled era? To answer these questions, I visited the offices of the Burning Man Project, on Market Street in downtown San Francisco, conducted numerous interviews with burners, and yes, drove up into the Nevada desert to immerse myself in Burning Man 2011.

Ethos and Pathos

Merriam-Webster defines pathos as "an element in experience or in artistic representation evoking pity or compassion," and ethos as "the distinguishing character, sentiment, moral nature, or guiding beliefs of a person, group, or institution." We are currently awash in pathos, but severely deficient in ethos.

As 50,000 burners headed to Black Rock City, the National Guard was airlifting food and water to the citizens of thirteen Vermont towns cut-off for days, without electricity or potable water, in the aftermath of Hurricane Irene. (NYT, 9-1-11) With four months to go in 2011, the U.S.A. has experienced a record 10 weather disasters causing at least $1 billion each in damages. (AP, 9-3-11)

As 50,000 burners headed to Black Rock City, James Hansen, the NASA's leading climate scientist was getting himself arrested outside the White House, in an act of civil disobedience aimed at urging President Obama to block the XL tar sands oil pipeline. Hansen says that the project would translate into "game over" for the climate upon which human civilization has been predicated for millennia. (Climate Progress, 6-25-11) Shouldn't NASA's leading climate scientist be inside the White House advising the President, rather than outside the White House, with thousands of other citizens, trying to get the President's attention?

Within the dominant culture of "the default world" (a term many burners use to refer to the world beyond Black Rock City), the cable news networks recently offered 24 hour coverage of Hurricane Irene as it hit NYC, but did not mention climate change once; similarly, earlier this year, U.S. President Barack Obama dared not even mention it once in his 2011 State of the Union address.

Friends, we are on our own.

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