August 25, 2009 archive

WTFF?? The Fed is trading in derivatives????

What the fucking fuck???  Say it ain’t so!

Zero Hedge is reporting that the Fed has been betting its shit on the big crap table.

One-point-some-odd trillion in March alone.

Box cars working, people.

WTFF??

If true, this is government on drugs, flying saucer, four-way-window-pane.

I’m not gonna tell you who wrote this

I just read this over at http://www.cryptogon.com, which is a great site.   He doesn’t tell you who wrote it either, but he links to it.   It’s succinct but covers the bases, and is brutally to the point.

In short, it might be the best thing I’ve read regarding the current disastrous situation in this country.  

It’s titled “Common Sense 2009”


The American government — which we once called our government — has been taken over by Wall Street, the mega-corporations and the super-rich. They are the ones who decide our fate. It is this group of powerful elites, the people President Franklin D. Roosevelt called “economic royalists,” who choose our elected officials — indeed, our very form of government. Both Democrats and Republicans dance to the tune of their corporate masters. In America, corporations do not control the government. In America, corporations are the government.

This was never more obvious than with the Wall Street bailout, whereby the very corporations that caused the collapse of our economy were rewarded with taxpayer dollars. So arrogant, so smug were they that, without a moment’s hesitation, they took our money — yours and mine — to pay their executives multimillion-dollar bonuses, something they continue doing to this very day. They have no shame. They don’t care what you and I think about them. Henry Kissinger refers to us as “useless eaters.”

But, you say, we have elected a candidate of change. To which I respond: Do these words of President Obama sound like change?

“A culture of irresponsibility took root, from Wall Street to Washington to Main Street.”

There it is. Right there. We are Main Street. We must, according to our president, share the blame. He went on to say: “And a regulatory regime basically crafted in the wake of a 20th-century economic crisis — the Great Depression — was overwhelmed by the speed, scope and sophistication of a 21st-century global economy.”

This is nonsense.

The reason Wall Street was able to game the system the way it did — knowing that they would become rich at the expense of the American people (oh, yes, they most certainly knew that) — was because the financial elite had bribed our legislators to roll back the protections enacted after the Stock Market Crash of 1929.

Congress gutted the Glass-Steagall Act, which separated commercial lending banks from investment banks, and passed the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which allowed for self-regulation with no oversight. The Securities and Exchange Commission subsequently revised its rules to allow for even less oversight — and we’ve all seen how well that worked out. To date, no serious legislation has been offered by the Obama administration to correct these problems.

The “Bad Apples” are scared!

While the newly released CIA Inspector General report, as redacted as it is, has raised eyebrows with the techniques used during interrogations, I found some items that raised MY eyebrows:

231.  During the course of this Review, a number of [CIA] Agency officers expressed unsolicited concern about the possibility of, recrimination or legal action resulting from their participation in the CTC Program.  A number of officers expressed concern that a human rights group might pursue them for activities.  Additionally, they feared that the Agency would not stand behind them if this occurred.

232. One officer expressed conern that one day, Agency officers will wind up on some wanted list to appear before the World Court for war crimes stemming from activities.

Another said, “Ten years from now we’re going to be ‘sorry we’re doing this … [but] it has to be done.” He expressed concern that the CTC Program will be exposed in the news media and cited particular concern about the possibility of being named in a leak.

Glenn Greenwald has a great article on this issue.

Argentina: Zanon belongs to the workers

Orignal article, written by the workers of Zanon-Sindicato Ceramistas in Neuquén, Argentina and subtitled “After 9 years of struggle we have achieved the definitive expropriation of our factory.” Via In Defence of Marxism.

After 9 years of struggle we have achieved the definitive expropriation of our factory.

The path taken by the workers at Zanon would not have been possible without previously seizing our union representation from the trade union bureaucracy.

No. 258 – CIA contractor killed person in interrogation

In the CIA’s Office of the Inspector General’s 2004 report on Counterterrorism Detention and Interrogation Activities (PDF) is this passage stating “inhumane… detention and interrogation techniques were used”. In addition, a CIA contractor killed “an individual” at Asadabad Base in Afghanistan “while under interrogation” in June 2003.

258 . (TS Unauthorized, improvised, inhumane, and undocumented detention and interrogation techniques were used referred to the Department of Justice (DoJ) for potential prosecution. incident will be the subject of a separate Report of Investigation by the Office of Inspector General.

unauthorized techniques were used in the interrogation of an individual who died at Asadabad Base while under interrogation by an Agency contractor in June 2003. Agency officers did not normally conduct interrogations at that location the Agency officers involved lacked timely and adequate guidance, training, experience, supervision, or authorization, and did not exercise sound judgment.

The argument had been no one died while being interrogated tortured, but the OIG’s report contradicts that. Not only that, but “unauthorized, improvised, inhumane, and undocumented detention and interrogation techniques were used”.

At the time the Abu Ghraib photos became known, the NY Times identified the person killed at Asadabad as Abdul Wali.

The third death under investigation at the C.I.A. occurred in Afghanistan in June 2003. The dead man was named Abdul Wali, a former local commander who had fought against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980’s and turned himself in to American forces last June in Asadabad, the capital of Kunar Province in eastern Afghanistan. He died while being interrogated by an independent contract employee of the C.I.A.

Wali surrendered to the U.S. and was then killed by a CIA contractor named David Passaro. According to the News and Observer, he is serving eight years for beating Wali resulting in his death.

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