December 1, 2008 archive

1. Like there was any doubt, but the NY Times reports “It’s Official: Recession Started One Year Ago“.

   The evidence of a downturn has been widespread for months: slower production, stagnant wages and hundreds of thousands of lost jobs. But the nonpartisan National Bureau of Economic Research, charged with making the call for the history books, waited until now to weigh in.

   In a statement released Monday, the members of the group’s Business Cycle Dating Committee – made up of seven prominent economists, most from the academic sector – said that the economy entered a recession in December 2007.

2. The LA Times reports Bombs kill at least 34 people in Iraq. Police recruits in Baghdad and U.S. and Iraqi security forces in Mosul were targeted.

   The monthly death toll for November, including civilians, police and soldiers, was 339, compared to 278 in October, according to figures from the ministries of health and interior. The number is far lower than for the month of November last year, when the death toll from bombings, shootings and other attacks linked to Iraq’s war was 608.

   The NY Times has the following quote in their coverage of the bombing:

   “If you dare to tell the truth, this is because of the American forces,” said a man who refused to give his name. “Their convoy went to the end of the street and the suicide bomber came right then. All of our troubles are because of the Americans.”

   At a press conference today to unveils his national security team, President-elect Barack Obama said “said he was sticking to his goal of removing American combat troops from Iraq within 16 months, which he called ‘the right time frame,’ and that this would be accomplished with safety for the troops and security for the Iraqi people.”

Four at Four continues with the climate talks in Poland and Pakistani-Indian tension.

On Saturday night I was invited to play for about a hundred yogis at ‘source yoga’, a studio in town, for the arrival of a swami from India. I get there and stand in a corner where I can hear myself tune, and think about what has happened in the last few days, specifically in Mumbai. I think of so many people who have given a message to us, a message of common humanity and shared values of goodness and compassion. In India, independence would not have come so easily had Gandhi not been there. Oh, it would have come; you cannot sustain a colonial presence, especially with ethnic differences as deep as between the British and the Indians; but somehow his message of Satyagraha, non-violent action, really succeeded where many armed uprisings failed.

I go to play, and the music comes out. I stand there, listening twice. Once for the music that I hear inside, and then again as I try to copy as accurately as I can the sounds that I hear in my heart. Mostly I do all right, and as I resolutely play without any amplifitation in the large and very full room, I let the music take me over until I’m hanging on for dear life as this sound emerges from my instrument.

The swami is late, held up in traffic; they ask if I would play some more. I take my instrument, and in the time that it takes to tune a new thing is there to be freed. I again try to be a pure conduit for the energy, thinking about everyone who has lost someone in the mess that was the siege of the hotels Oberoi, Taj, and Nariman house; the pictures of the young rabbi and his wife, the faces of the two ‘terrorists’ who were photographed, all come together in a face that reflects the intensity of the feelings of the situation.

The second piece starts with the hymn ‘Amazing Grace’, then moves into a terra ingognita of conflicting feelings, odd and jagged melodies contrasting with solemn tones that are like Bach’s cello suites in their sobriety. gradually the sound evolves back to finish where it began, with the simple notes of ‘Amazing Grace’, one of my favorite hymns, full of hope and redemption. I can’t help thinking that the young men who executed the attack left behind a grieving mother, a family burdened by grief; everyone of us pays for this, no matter the exhortations of religious figures that preach that violence is a great way of serving God. And I realize that we, as common humanity, have paid enough for religious differences; We have paid enough and too much for the exhortations of religious leaders who urge violence as a sacred duty, sanctioned by the Creator, who I believe has said no such thing.

And I return to my personal revelation, of Jesus coming to me late at night a few weeks ago and saying just this:

“I am love; first of all and most importantly, I am that love that moves all things. Remember this, and remember that apart from all sectarian feelings and dogmatic sayings I am first and last pure love.”

I pray that we all can move towards this universal love, the source of all good action towards all beings; beyond individual prophets and their revelations, “that love that moves the sun and the other stars”, as Dante so beautifully puts it, pulls all beings toward itself.

Lawrence of Arabia wrote that during one of his travels, he ran into an old blind hermit near a spring of pure water in the desert; and that finally, the old man said:

“The Love is From God, and of God, and towards God”.

That’s all the religion I need. And all the religion that the whole world needs.

I lost my liberal creds somewhere. I looked under the couch, in the glovebox, all my coat pockets, and they are just gone, man.

They must be somewhere by the “you’re an anti-semite” and “religious bigot for not liking star religions” keys.

So now I have to make a whole new set from scratch dudes, and its a total bummer.

So the very first thing I have to do, is make Barack Obama arrest Bush and Cheney.

Then I have to declare martial law in Indiana, where all those “terrified of the black guy” people in M_A’s video yesterday live.  Cuz they got guns, and they loves them some Palin and Jezuz and they ain’t gonna let no “N-word” arrest the righful Pres’nit of these God-lubbin U-natted States without a fight.

I am all over it.

What Will Monday’s Announcements

Mean For The U.S. And The World?  

Pentagon to Detail Troops to Bolster Domestic Security



By Spencer S. Hsu and Ann Scott Tyson

Washington Post Staff Writers

Monday, December 1, 2008; Page A01

The U.S. military expects to have 20,000 uniformed troops inside the United States by 2011 trained to help state and local officials respond to a nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe, according to Pentagon officials.

The long-planned shift in the Defense Department’s role in homeland security was recently backed with funding and troop commitments after years of prodding by Congress and outside experts, defense analysts said.

At war level: India raises security status amid grief

Fallout from Mumbai attacks jeopardises south Asian peace process

Randeep Ramesh in Mumbai and Jason Burke in Islamabad

guardian.co.uk, Monday December 1 2008 00.01 GMT

The Indian government raised the country’s security to a “war level” yesterday saying it had certain proof of a Pakistani link to the Mumbai attacks.

The dramatic move prompted Pakistan to say it would end military operations against Islamist militants on the Afghan border, which are critical to the “war on terror”, for an “unwanted conflict” with Delhi.

With bodies being pulled from the Taj Mahal hotel, where gunmen had made their last stand after a rampage that left more than 170 dead, Sri Prakash Jaiswal, India’s minister of state for home affairs, said the country’s “intelligence will be increased to a war level, we are asking the state governments to increase security to a war level”. The Press Trust of India, India’s official news agency also reported that the government was considering suspending the four-year-old peace process with its neighbour.

USA

A wealth of ideas for Obama’s stimulus program

The next president has yet to offer details of his plan. Its size and scope, and how he’ll address housing and the auto industry, are up for debate.

By Michael A. Hiltzik

December 1, 2008

In three news conferences last week, President-elect Barack Obama began to outline an economic stimulus and recovery program involving public works, tax breaks and new federal funding for energy research.

The planned initiatives provided a spark of optimism amid the nation’s worsening financial outlook, but elements crucial for a sustained recovery are yet missing and many important details remain to be filled in, economists say. These include Obama’s approach to mortgage relief and the structure of a bailout of the automobile industry.

Some of the gaps may be deliberate, as insiders debate the size and scope of the package. Liberal economists in particular argue that to be effective, the program will have to be massive.