Common Ground Common Sense > Political OpEds, News and Commentary

Snuffysmith

Sep 20 2008, 07:41 AM

The "Battle in Seattle" and Beyond

Stuart Townsend, AlterNet

Movie Mix: How do we create meaningful protest?

Snuffysmith

Sep 20 2008, 07:42 AM

Snuffysmith

Sep 20 2008, 07:42 AM

New McCain Attacks Echo Rove Advice

by Sam Stein, Huffington Post - 4:30 AM

Rachel Maddow Sees 'Palin Effect' for What it Is: Bullsh*t

by Tana Ganeva, AlterNet - 3:00 AM

Jimmy Carter Calls for Clemency for Troy Davis

by Staff, AlterNet - 2:50 AM

New McCain Economic Plan: More Gas Guzzlers

by Josh Dorner, Sierra Club - 6:00 PM

RNC Charges Dropped Against Amy Goodman and Democracy Now! Producers

by , Democracy Now! - 4:00 PM

McCain's Double Talk on Immigration Gets Worse

by Frank Sharry, Huffington Post - 3:52 PM

Snuffysmith

Sep 20 2008, 07:44 AM

The group blog of The American Prospect
False equivalences.[/color]
Posted at 5:21 p.m.

A respectable liberal blog
Obama's economic brain trust
Posted at 4:36 p.m.

Dean Baker's economic commentary
[color="#800000"]A new Committee to Save the World?
Posted at 6:37 a.m.

Snuffysmith

Sep 20 2008, 07:45 AM

The Drumbeat
William Staneski
It's the drumbeat of the left. It is political, philosophical, theological, and social. It pervades every activity. It is post-structural, post-modern, post-everything More

The Left's Crooked Umpires
Bruce Walker
The left has politicized many arenas of life, and in place of impartial professionals, we now have politicized operatives advancing an agenda. More

MSNBC and the Maturation of Cable News
Gregory A. Collins
MSNBC has swung sharply to the left and that's a good thing. For the network itself, for the American left, and for conservatives and centrists too. More

Snuffysmith

Sep 20 2008, 07:45 AM

Why does Joe Biden lie about a 'drunk driver' killing his 1st wife?
September 19, 2008
Why on earth would a United States Senator fabricate an embellishment and claim that it was a drunk driver's fault, when the record clearly indicates it was not? More

Ahmadinejad Match Point; Humanity 0 (updated)
September 19, 2008
Sometimes it is one decision at one moment that determines the game, and one decision at one moment that shapes history. The presidents of major Jewish organizations had that moment More

More liberal thuggishness
September 19, 2008
In ultra-liberal Austin, TX, McCain supporters have a problem with their lawn signs being vandalized. More

Obama and Raines: then and now
September 19, 2008
In 2008 the Washington Post reported (and its principal source was clearly Franklin Raines) that Raines was offering financial advice to Obama More

Snuffysmith

Sep 20 2008, 07:46 AM

Brainwashing students using your tax money (updated)
September 19, 2008
Our tax dollars are at work bashing Sarah Palin in state-funded higher education. More

Hackers and their accomplices after the fact
September 19, 2008
Let's not forget Gawker which first published Palin's hacked emails More

Obamonopoly
September 19, 2008
Doug Ross has created a wonderful graphics series, a parody of the game of Monopoly he calls Obamonopoly, so anyone can understand the Obama/Fannie Mae/ACORN connections More

GOP Brand making a comeback
September 19, 2008
The Republican party is making a comeback in the polls More

I wonder who Arab Americans support for President?
September 19, 2008
The Detroit News has the answer: More

Associated Press blames Palin for hacking
September 19, 2008
The Associated Press (AP) continues its arrogance in the Sarah Palin e mail hacking case More

Rangel's car gets the hook
September 19, 2008
Rangel parked a car in the House garage for years without paying the $290 a month fee. More

Update: The Atlantic Photographer and McCain Derangement Syndrome
September 19, 2008
Jill Greenberg gets her just deserts. More

Snuffysmith

Sep 20 2008, 07:46 AM

Mistress of Disaster: Jamie Gorelick - C. Edmund Wright

A Taxpayer Stickup - Jim H. Ainsworth

Why Islamists Cheer For Obama - Vasko Kohlmayer

Comparing the Candidates' Colleges - Jeff Carter

Our Allies Want McCain - Richard L. Benkin

Snuffysmith

Sep 20 2008, 07:47 AM

Shock Forced Paulson's Hand - Solomon, Rappaport & Paletta, WSJ
Reason for Optimism - Anatole Kaletsky, Times of London
Bailout Cost: Higher Than You Think - Colin Barr, Fortune
Campaigns Become Conventional - John Dickerson, Slate
McCain's Objective in the 1st Debate - William Kristol, Weekly Standard
The Economy: McCain's Zig-Zag Express - Jonathan Alter, Newsweek
Paulson, Bernanke Deserve Good Marks - Clive Crook, National Journal
Questions Paulson Needs to Answer - Liz Moyer, Forbes
Wall Street Woes Benefit Obama - Martin & Thrush, The Politico
A Feminist Face-Off for the Future - Suzanne Fields, RealClearPolitics
Palin: Cheney With a Moose Gun - Cynthia Tucker, Atlanta JC
GOP Brand is Hot Again - Fred Barnes, Weekly Standard
GOP's Future Looks like Democrats' Past - Ross Douthat, The Atlantic
McCain's Dirty Environmental Record - Joseph Romm, Salon
Joe Biden, Straw Man - Katherine Mangu-Ward, Reason
The U.S. Will Lose in Afghanistan - Robert Fisk, The Independent
Why the Surge Worked - Jack Keane, Wall Street Journal

Snuffysmith

Sep 20 2008, 07:48 AM

Editorials
Stopping the Panic - Wall Street Journal
Hard Truths About the Bailout - New York Times
Time for a Bail-Out - Financial Times
Cost Will Be Astronimical - Washington Post

Snuffysmith

Sep 20 2008, 07:48 AM

Political News & Analysis
Treasury, Congress to Work Through Weekend - Bloomberg
Democrats Eye Bailout Bill for Other Projects - The Politico
McCain Criticizes Bailouts, Obama Calls for Bipartisanship - L.A. Times
Obama, McCain Court Hispanics - Wall Street Journal

Transcripts & Speeches

President Bush Discusses the Economy - George W. Bush
Secretary Paulson's Remarks - Henry Paulson
Barack Obama's Remarks on the Economy - Barack Obama
McCain's Economic Speech in Green Bay - John McCain
Obama's Remarks in New Mexico - Barack Obama

Best of the Blogs
How McCain Can Win - Sean Oxendine, Next Right
Bailout of All Bailouts is a Bad Idea - Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog
Socialism - Joe Klein, Swampland
Exploring the Palin Divide - Chris Cillizza, The Fix
Chris Cox's Terrible Idea - Larry Kudlow, The Corner

Snuffysmith

Sep 20 2008, 07:50 AM

Most Read
Last 24 Hours
The State of the Race
- Jay Cost, RealClearPolitics
Campaign Lies, Media Double Standards
- Stuart Taylor, National Journal
The Case for Palin is Unraveling
- Jonathan Chait, The New Republic
Election Could Come Down to Colorado
- Stuart Rothenberg, Roll Call

Snuffysmith

Sep 20 2008, 07:51 AM

Will Momentum Change Again?
- Charlie Cook, National Journal
What States Are Really in Play?
- Richard Baehr, American Thinker
McCain Flies His Campaign Past Obama
- Michael Barone, US News

Snuffysmith

Sep 20 2008, 07:52 AM

Snuffysmith

Sep 20 2008, 07:57 AM

Bailout or Not, Credit Will Be Crunched The credit crunch has only just begun.

Snuffysmith

Sep 20 2008, 08:05 AM

MARGARET CARLSON
Market Meltdown Makes Palin Look Even Scarier It takes a lot to reinsert reality into a presidential campaign once it devolves into the wholly trivial. Remember when America decided that a sighing Al Gore was as stiff as his Secret Service name -- Redwood -- and could neither tell nor take a joke, and that George W. Bush, the class clown, won the debate, sort of?

Snuffysmith

Sep 20 2008, 08:05 AM

AMITY SHLAES
Recovery Without Bailout, Even for General Motors Recovery without federal bailout? Impossible.

Snuffysmith

Sep 20 2008, 08:17 AM

William Greider:
The Scent of Fear

Dave Lindorff:
Hang Onto Your Wallet! The Government Is About to Rescue Us

Dean Baker:
The Financial Meltdown Continues

Chuck Collins:
Tax the Speculators

Lawrence Velvel:
A Crisis of American Capitalism

William Pfaff:
Reality Catches Up to the Free Market

John Dean :
Vice President Dick Cheney's Incredible and Deadly Lie

Helen Thomas:
Palin + McCain Equals More Bush

Snuffysmith

Sep 20 2008, 08:18 AM

What's Really Bankrupt

[b]The Wall Street Model: Unintelligent Design [/b]
By PAM MARTENS

Wall Street is collapsing not because of bad mortgage debt or lack of capital or over-leverage. Those are merely symptoms. Wall Street is collapsing because it deserves to collapse; it needs to collapse in order for America to survive. The economist Joseph Schumpeter called it creative destruction, a system where outdated models collapse to make room for new innovation.

Wall Street of the past decade never really had a business model as much as it had a business creed: greed is good; leveraged greed is even better.

The fact that Wall Street is collapsing is a given. How it survived as long as it did under its corrupted model is the question that will be debated in history books for the next generation.

For example, imagine a business model that bases remuneration to brokers on how much money they make for their Wall Street employer and not one dime for how well their customers’ portfolios perform. A Wall Street broker receives remuneration that rises from approximately 30 to 50 per cent of the gross commission based on their cumulative trading commissions with zero regard to how well the clients’ accounts have done. There is no acknowledged internal mechanism in any of the major Wall Street firms to gauge the overall success of the accounts the broker is managing.

The industry has been irreconcilably incentivized to corruption just as brokers have been socialized to silence. The reason we are seeing a stampede this week into U.S. Treasury securities is that much of this money belonged there in the first place, not in esoteric mortgage backed securities, junk bonds, commodity funds or annuities backed by AIG. Brokers put their clients “safe money” in these unsuitable investments because their Wall Street employer dangled a seductive financial inducement. A broker receives less than $1,000 in gross commissions (“gross” meaning before their firm takes their 50 to 70 per cent cut) on $100,000 of longer dated Treasuries. Putting that same $100,000 in a junk bond or mortgage-backed security or annuity could generate $3,000 or more. In other words, the financial incentive has created an artificial demand. And, as must inevitably happen, the true state of that demand is just now catching up with the true glut of supply.

What would be the incentive for Wall Street firms to offer higher commissions for some products over others? Because on top of their cut of the brokers commissions, they receive origination and syndication fees for the more esoteric investment products. These firms so despised the low-paying Treasuries that they replaced Treasuries with Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae paper in mutual funds bearing the name “U.S. Government Fund.” (This misleading practice and the fact that billions of dollars of public money resided in these misnamed funds has certainly played a role in the government’s decision to nationalize Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.)

Then there is the insane model of bringing flim-flam new businesses to market. If we look at the people who are at the helm of today’s collapsing Wall Street, they have shifted in their chairs, but they are mostly the same conflicted individuals who brought America the NASDAQ bust that began in March 2000 and evaporated $7 trillion of American wealth. There is no longer any incentive on Wall Street to bring about initial public offerings of only companies that will stand the test of time and create new jobs and new markets to make America strong and globally competitive. There is only an incentive to collect the underwriting fee and cash out quickly on private equity stakes.

Next is the corrupted model of housing a trading desk for the firm inside the same company that is supposed to issue unbiased research to the public. For example, let’s say that XYZ Brokerage buys a big stake in ABC Company on its proprietary trading desk (the desk that trades for profits for the firm) on Wednesday afternoon. On Thursday afternoon, it could almost guarantee profits for itself by issuing a research report upgrading the stock. Conversely, it could short the stock on Wednesday and issue a negative report to drive down the price on Thursday, also guaranteeing itself a profit. Other than a fictional Chinese Wall, there is absolutely nothing to stop this type of public looting.

Now, ask yourself this. With the multitude of other ways that Wall Street has to make money, why are they allowed to have their own trading desk while simultaneously issuing conflicted research to the public. After the NASDAQ scandals that revealed Wall Street issuing biased research for personal profit, why weren’t proprietary trading desks and public research issuance shut down at these firms. There are plenty of boutique research firms to fill the void. The only conclusion to be drawn is what Europe is calling “regulatory capture” here in the U.S. That’s a phrase similar to what Nancy Pelosi was calling “crony capitalism” on Wednesday, September 17 before she decided to join the crony capitalists at a microphone on Thursday, September 18 to promise bipartisanship on the mother of all bailouts to Wall Street.

This unintelligent design business model would have cracked and imploded long ago but for one saving grace: it came with its own unintelligent design justice system called mandatory arbitration. Gloria Steinem once called mandatory arbitration “McJustice.” It’s really more like Burger King; Wall Street can have it their way. In a system designed by Wall Street’s own attorneys, arbitrators do not have to follow the law, or legal precedent, or write a reasoned decision, or pull arbitrators from a large unbiased pool as is done in jury selection. Industry insiders routinely serve over and over again. Had there been ongoing trials in open, public courtrooms, the magnitude of the leverage, worthless securities, and corrupted business model would have been exposed before it brought America to the financial brink.

That Wall Street and its Washington coterie are stilled embraced in regulatory capture and unintelligent design is most keenly evidenced by the recent merger of Merrill Lynch, the brokerage/investment firm, with Bank of America, the commercial bank and ongoing discussions to merge Morgan Stanley, the brokerage/investment firm with a commercial bank. (Memo to Enemy Combatants Against Taxpayers a/k/a Wall Street/Washington: this new model is the failed model of Citigroup. Why do you hate America?)

Make no mistake that what ever the dollar amount announced next week to funnel into an entity to buy bad debts from banks and Wall Street firms, it won’t be enough. It’s a Band-Aid on a malignant tumor. That tumor is Credit Default Swaps (CDS) with over $60 trillion now owed through secret contracts in an unregulated market created, financed and owned by the unintelligent design masters, Wall Street firms themselves. (See “How Wall Street Blew Itself Up,” CounterPunch, January 21, 2008.)

There is no sincere plan by this administration to help America or Americans. There is only a plan to slow the financial collapse until after the November elections by throwing a politically palatable amount of money at it and a plan to continue to blame it on a housing bust.

If we, the American people, allow this to happen, we’re enablers to the unintelligent design model. Before one more penny of our taxes are spent on this ruse, we must demand a seat at the table (I think Ralph Nader should occupy that seat) to discuss breaking up Wall Street, crushing this model, innovating a sensible model that serves the individual investor and deserving businesses, and promises our children a future of more than a banana republic.

Pam Martens worked on Wall Street for 21 years; she has no securities position, long or short, in any company mentioned in this article. She writes on public interest issues from New Hampshire. She can be reached at pamk741@aol.com

Snuffysmith

Sep 20 2008, 08:27 AM

Why Won't Obama Call It Out?

The New Rhetoric of Racism
By KEEANGA-YAMATTA TAYLOR

In recent days, John McCain has been lambasted for telling outright lies in his campaign ads--from the claim that Barack Obama called Sarah Palin a pig to the absurd charge that Obama insisted on sex education for kindergarteners.

The media and the pundits--even the king of dirty campaigning himself, Karl Rove--criticized the untruths underpinning McCain's increasingly vicious ads.

But most have been silent about another aspect of McCain's campaigning--an increased willingness to invoke a new lexicon of racist code words, aimed at stoking bigotry among white voters.

While McCain and the other Neanderthals in the Republican Party can't get away with calling Obama a criminal or a welfare cheat, they're using new terms to get the point across--he's Black, he's urban, and he's out of step with the "rest of us." And the us, of course, are "hard-working white Americans," as Hillary Clinton put it toward the end of her failed bid to win the Democratic presidential nomination.

Last month's Republican National Convention was a cesspool of thinly veiled racist invective aimed at Obama. Sarah Palin, the Republicans' vice presidential candidate, sneered about Obama's history as a community organizer. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani likewise derided Obama for his work "on the South Side of Chicago."

A few hours before McCain gave his acceptance speech, Republican bigot Lynn Westmoreland, a member of Congress from the former slave state of Georgia, referred to Michelle and Barack Obama as "uppity," saying, "Just from what little I've seen of her and Mr. Obama, Sen. Obama, they're a member of an elitist-class individual that thinks that they're uppity." Given an opportunity to clarify, Westmoreland said, "Yeah, uppity."

"As a native of the South," said political commentator David Gergen, "I can tell you, when you see this Charlton Heston ad, 'The One,' that's code for, 'He's uppity, he ought to stay in his place.' Everybody gets that who is from a Southern background."

For those who have never heard of Westmoreland, all you really need to know is that in 2006, he and 32 of his other Southern white brethren voted against renewing the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which, among other things, guarantees Blacks the right to vote.

The hypocrisy of white Republicans--whose party openly represents the interests of the wealthy and the most conservative wing of American capitalism--calling Obama "uppity" and "elitist" would be funny if their actions weren't helping to legitimize cruder forms of racism that have emerged during the course of this never-ending election.

A few days ago, at a conservative convention where Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney were featured speakers--both McCain and Palin were invited, but sent their regrets--one stand did a booming business selling "Obama Waffles" mix for $10 a box.

The box was adorned with a picture of Obama with a big smile, huge lips and bulging eyes--like something out of the antebellum South. On the back of the box, Obama was pictured in a sombrero, alluding to his supposed plans to "flood" the U.S. with "illegal aliens." And, of course, there was the ubiquitous image of Obama in a turban.

The sellers chalked it up to political satire--and dared anyone to call them bigoted.

* * *

THE USE of racism in American politics isn't new, by any means, but the methods for invoking it have changed.

In the 1968 election for president, Republican Richard Nixon crafted the so-called "Southern Strategy" of making coded racist appeals to win white votes.

The Southern Strategy was an acknowledgement that open anti-Black racism would no longer be tolerated, now that African Americans' right to vote was firmly established. But with the Democratic Party falling apart because of its inability to contain the contradictions of being both the formal party of civil rights in the North and the party of Jim Crow in the South, the Southern Strategy was, above all, about winning the rural, white Southern vote into the Republican sphere.

Attacking the Black movement as "criminal" became the centerpiece of this strategy. Black political struggles, from civil rights to urban rebellions, were accused of creating a growing sense of chaos, disorder and crime in American cities. This was conveyed through perpetual references to "urban crime" or "urban disorder." There were more banal appeals around "urban problems," but the inference was clear--Blacks were the cause.

Nixon's cynical use of race was only the beginning. A succession of American politicians--from both major parties--regularly invoked racist stereotypes that conflated social problems found in all inner cities with Black life. These, in turn, became the touchstone for all that was and remains wrong with American society, according to the politicians: drugs, crime, welfare, teen pregnancy, homeless and poverty.

In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan picked up Nixon's mantle by campaigning across the South--he launched his 1980 campaign in Philadelphia, Miss., where three civil rights workers were murdered in 1964. In office, Reagan regularly invoked fictitious characters like "welfare queens" to justify his program of cutting back on social programs.

Reagan and his successor, George H.W. Bush, declared a war on drugs--which, in reality, meant a war on young Black men. Bush used an unapologetically racist ad--about Willie Horton, a Black man who was accused of a killing a white woman while free on a prison work-release program--against opponent Michael Dukakis, but the first politician to raise Horton was fellow Democrat and future vice president Al Gore.

When he ran for president in 1992, Bill Clinton made fighting crime and ending welfare big aspects of his campaign--both of which were used to convey a message that he was not beholden to Black "special interests." The most outrageous example of this was his public admonition of a Black female rap artist--a strange target for a presidential candidate.

During the hotly contested election of 2000--the one that George W. Bush eventually stole--both Bush and McCain, his main opponent for the Republican nomination, jockeyed over the meaning of the Confederate Flag during the South Carolina primary. Their pandering signaled their contempt for African American voters and their desire to win the white, racist rural vote.

In the current election, it was the Clintons who unleashed the racist genie from its bottle during the Democratic primaries, out of a sense of desperation and entitlement when Hillary Clinton fell behind Obama. After all, it was Hillary Clinton--she with a net worth of $34.9 million--who first accused Obama of being an "elitist" who is "out of touch" with "hardworking" people.

* * *

THAT CLINTON'S strategy ultimately failed says quite a bit about the degree to which the grip of racism on American society has loosened since Nixon's Southern Strategy campaign 40 years ago. Millions of ordinary whites voted for Obama, and he now stands on the verge of becoming the first African American president of the U.S.--a country founded on slavery.

That said, racism remains an effective tool of division and distraction in the hands of politicians who have no answers for the growing and profound crises gripping the U.S.

Clinton's campaign did help narrow Obama's lead in the waning months of the Democratic primaries. Clinton was able to prey on the anxieties, cynicism and despair among many white workers who are frustrated and angry about declining living standards and, in some cases, quick to blame immigrants and Blacks.

McCain and the Republicans are set on using the same strategy. Thus, opinion polls show that efforts at demonizing Obama as urban, elitist and "out of touch" have had some success in convincing some white voters, who under other circumstances would vote Democratic, to consider McCain. Plus, there's also a small group of former Clinton supporters who refuse to vote for Obama and threaten to join the McCain camp.

The irony is that Obama has gone out of his way to avoid being associated with the issues of race and racism throughout the campaign. His rhetoric about change has generated a lot of enthusiasm, but his actual political positions belong to the mainstream of the Democratic Party, which has been complicit in the re-legitimization of racism in American politics and policies that have made living standards and conditions worse for millions of African Americans, and working people generally.

Obama's silence has given the Republican creeps a free hand. Asked about Lynn Westmoreland's comment that Obama was "uppity," his campaign denied that race had anything to do with it. Questioned about the "Obama Waffles" slur, Obama's campaign had "no comment."
Since Obama's historic and effective speech on race last spring, his campaign has been quiet--unless it was to attack Black men on Father's Day or denounce Rev. Jeremiah Wright. By remaining silent, Obama both legitimizes media silence on these issues and simultaneously allows the right to continue with the same garbage.

Obama is no doubt concerned that if he were to speak out against the different expressions of racism from the Clintons or McCain and Palin, the media would focus on this alone and bury anything else about his campaign. He is frightened of being labeled by the media as an "angry Black man," running a campaign like Rev. Al Sharpton--in other words, one that isn't to be taken seriously.

It is certainly true that the media have a long record of trivializing and dismissing Black candidates and discussions of race in election campaigns. But there are consequences to the course Obama has chosen.

First, Obama is the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party, so it's unlikely that his campaign will be treated dismissively at this point, no matter what the past record of the media.

Second, Obama's silence means the smears will continue because there is no political price to pay for those who make them. If the Republicans didn't fear being seen as racist, then they would forgo the symbolism and code words and go for outright slurs.

Finally, Obama's tepid response to campaign racism, combined with his generally nebulous political message, which has moved to the right since he locked up the nomination, is blunting the momentum that carried him through the early primary season last winter.

If Obama were to devote even a small amount of time and energy to challenging racism--rather than Sarah Palin's governing experience or whether McCain knows how to send an e-mail--he would stand a better chance of sending the Republicans back under the rocks they skulked out from. As it is, his failure to make a stand leaves opportunities for the Republicans to exploit--and shows that his promise to bring change is about rhetoric, not reality.

Keeanga-Yamatta Taylor writes for the Socialist Worker.

Snuffysmith

Sep 20 2008, 08:28 AM

Hopi and Navajo Elders Warned Lehman Bros.

Blowback for Black Mesa
By BRENDA NORRELL

A delegation of Navajo, Hopi and Lakota warned Lehman Brothers stockholders of the dire consequences of their actions in 2001. In a rare move, censored by most media, the Navajo, Hopi and Lakota delegation warned Lehman Brothers, after it acquired the financial interests of Peabody Coal, of the spiritual consequences of mining coal on sacred Black Mesa and the aftermath of Peabody Coal's machinations that led to the so-called Navajo Hopi Land Dispute. Lehman Brothers is now in the midst of financial collapse, with its bankruptcy producing a rippling effect throughout the world's economy.

At the time of the Lehman Brothers stockholders meeting in 2001, Arlene Hamilton bought two shares of stocks in Lehman Brothers to pave the way for the delegation to address the stockholders. Hamilton said her life was threatened because of this action. Shortly afterwards, Hamilton was killed in a car crash. Longtime Navajo relocation resister Roberta Blackgoat died in San Francisco at Hamilton's memorial.

A traditional Hopi was among those addressing the Lehman Brothers stockholders. His admonitions followed those of the late Hopi Sinom elders Thomas Banyacya and Dan Evehema, among the Hopi elders who warned of dire consequences, including natural disasters and worldwide consequences, if Peabody mined coal on Black Mesa and Navajos were relocated from this sacred region. The Hopi Sinom never authorized the establishment of the Hopi Tribal Council, which they referred to as a puppet government of the United States.

The traditional Hopi in the delegation told stockholders, "Lehman Brothers, even though we are just a few here, we speak for the Creator, who is the majority. "Therefore we demand you stop the Peabody coal mining and the slurry. We demand again," said the Hopi elder who asked that his name not be published in the media.

"Traditional and priesthood people don't want this mining. The Hopi prophecies say that we have to protect land and life. If we don't protect our beautiful Earth --our Heaven, our Mother, we will suffer with her." He told stockholders that Hopis never signed a treaty with the United States and the current Hopi Tribal Council is not legitimate since it was created by less than 30 percent of the people. Referring to the beginning of the turmoil, he said, "John Boyden was a lawyer who worked for Peabody Coal. He was instrumental to the creation of the Hopi Tribal Council.

"Our ancestors warned that someday this would happen. White men will say that it is our own people that sold this land. I will not accept this.

"Our roots are rooted in our villages and it goes up to the whole universe. If we break these roots the world will get out of balance. "I pray for you and hope that we open your eyes and you find the majority in your heart."

Roberta Blackgoat, longtime resister and sheepherder from Cactus Valley, told stockholders the region of San Francisco Peaks is holy to the Navajo people. Mining in the area of this sacred mountain is the same as desecrating an altar and church. It is making the people sick."We can not go away to other places," Blackgoat said, adding that livestock confiscation is "starving the people."

"When you have a pinprick on your finger, just take it off and the pain will go away. But there are too many pins on the Mother Earth. Barbed wire is all over the country, dividing the people."

Blackgoat was among the families resisting forced relocation. After Peabody orchestrated the so-called Navajo Hopi Land Dispute, more than 12,000 Navajos were relocated to make way for Peabody's coal mining. Senator John McCain, R-Ariz., was among those responsible for Navajo relocation.

Leonard Benally, Navajo from Big Mountain on Black Mesa in Arizona, said the delegation told Lehman Brothers that it is time to transform operations to renewable forms of energy, including solar and wind power.

"It was like opening this marble door to the Lehman Brothers. We got our foot in there. They were willing to listen. By going there, the delegation touched their hearts." Benally said the delegation also dispelled myths.

"They say it's a land dispute, but it is not. The traditional Hopi and Navajo are standing together, they are the original inhabitants of Black Mesa. We are the caretakers."Benally said the people have been struggling for 32 years because of the turmoil created by Hopi and Navajo tribal leaders intent on making money from the 92 billion tons of coal beneath the ground at Black Mesa. But, he said, the resistance actually goes back 500 years to the Spanish invasion, followed by the European invasion. Finally there was the Kit Carson invasion. "That's when the people were put in the death camps."

While Navajos were incarcerated at Fort Sumner, he said, "The military made promises, mountains of promises they never kept."While the Navajo Nation government in Window Rock celebrated Sovereignty Day in April (2001), Benally said tribal leaders force their own people to suffer respiratory disease and death from coal mining, sacrificing them for mining royalties.

"Sovereignty Day? That's a joke. For us, we live it. They oppress their own race. They make them bleed."In the 1970s, the Four Corners region was considered a National Sacrifice area, but Benally said it is time to change that classification to a National Historic Site. "The sacredness is still here. Mother Earth is still here. She still breathes. As long as the air blows, the rivers run, Indigenous people will be out here."

Benally said the Navajo, Hopi and Lakota delegation moved in solidarity with the Zapatistas whose caravan through Mexico gave them hope in 2001.

"We felt the wind, it came from the South. It is telling the Indigenous people to rise up for their beliefs, their culture. These things are not being respected by anyone but the Indigenous people." In New York, Joe Chasing Horse, Sundance Chief at Big Mountain, addressed the protest rally and spoke to Lehman Brothers Merchant Banking Fund stockholders."You have taken all of our land, now we have come to show you how to take care of it," Chasing Horse said. "The traditionalists have the wisdom, we are the wisdom keepers." Glenna Begay, Navajo protesting in New York, said, "I traveled 3,000miles to be here and to voice my concern about what's happening to us out there on the land. I want the mining to stop."

Louise Benally of Big Mountain said, "We need to hold the owners accountable by letting them know the hardship we live with every day." Arlene Hamilton, coordinator of the Weaving for Freedom project and wife of Leonard Benally, personally bought two shares in the corporation to ensure entrance into the stockholders meeting. She and Benally negotiated with Lehman Brothers to allow the elders time to address stockholders.

"These were some of the richest men and women in the world. The delegation was so beautiful, and so with the truth. Their presence was holy."

Back in Flagstaff in 2001, Hamilton said Lehman Brothers and Peabody Coal now have the opportunity to make a difference in the future of mankind.

"We want the dehumanizing and militarizing to stop. There is a lot of suffering going on. We want to make sure the ceremonies are not surrounded by guns and the people have clean drinking water.

"There is no life without water." Hamilton said Navajo elders resisting relocation often become dehydrated during the hot summer months because of the scarcity of clean water, while Peabody Coal pumps 10,000 gallons of water a minute to slurry coal.She has taken human rights concerns to Peabody management for years, but she said they have done little to improve the quality of living as promised. "It's really just diversion and distraction while the people are suffering out there. Everything is based on making way for mining."

The delegation presented a list of demands to Lehman Brothers, demanding that Peabody leave the water and coal alone because they are the lungs and liver of Mother Earth. They called for a halt to mining and the initiation of a solar project, availability of clean drinking water, and a halt to military over flights and the intimidation of elders and youths by armed rangers.

Hamilton said the Weaving for Freedom project is a collective of Dine' weavers in resistance struggling for religious freedom to practice their ancient craft while protecting their sacred land. Hamilton said, "This work is very risky now. We protect each other by traveling in large groups." Leonard Benally said, "The whole thing is about materialism, money. In our culture, money doesn't matter. It is about how you live in harmony with nature, in harmony with your prayers. "That's why we are fighting for our lands, even though the media and politicians are telling us we don't have a right to exist."

Meanwhile, Bill Ahearn, spokesman for Lehman Brothers, said the protesters were welcome to speak at the meeting but said the firm would be unable to help them. He said the issues must be resolved by the tribes and BIA.

"We're very sympathetic and we feel badly for them, but there's nothing we can do for them because it's not a problem with us."

Brenda Norrell is human rights editor for U.N. OBSERVER & International Report. She also runs the Censored website and is a contributor to Red State Rebels. She can be reached at: brendanorrell@gmail.com

Snuffysmith

Sep 20 2008, 08:29 AM

The Bi-Partisan Origins of the Financial Crisis

Shattering the Glass-Steagall Act
By WILLIAM KAUFMAN

If you're looking for a major cause of the current banking meltdown, you need seek no farther than the 1999 repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act.

The Glass-Steagall Act, passed in 1933, mandated the separation of commercial and investment banking in order to protect depositors from the hazards of risky investment and speculation. It worked fine for fifty years until the banking industry began lobbying for its repeal during the 1980s, the go-go years of Reaganesque market fundamentalism, an outlook embraced wholeheartedly by mainstream Democrats under the rubric "neoliberalism."

The main cheerleader for the repeal was Phil Gramm, the fulsome reactionary who, until he recently shoved his foot even farther into his mouth than usual, was McCain's chief economic advisor.

But wait . . . as usual, the Democrats were eager to pile on to this reversal of New Deal regulatory progressivism -- fully 38 of 45 Senate Democrats voted for the repeal (which passed 90-8), including some famous names commonly associated with "progressive" politics by the easily gulled: Dodd, Kennedy, Kerry, Reid, and Schumer. And, of course, there was the inevitable shout of "yea" from the ever-servile corporate factotum Joseph Biden, Barack Obama's idea of a tribune of "change"--if by change one means erasing any lingering obstacle to corporate domination of the polity.

This disgraceful bow to the banking industry, eagerly signed into law by Bill Clinton in 1999, bears a major share of responsibility for the current banking crisis. Here's the complete roll call of shame:

REPUBLICANS FOR (52): Abraham, Allard, Ashcroft, Bennett, Brownback, Bond, Bunning, Burns, Campbell, Chafee, Cochran, Collins, Coverdell, Craig, Crapo, DeWine, Domenici, Enzi, Frist, Gorton, Gramm (Tex.), Grams (Minn.), Grassley, Gregg, Hegel, Hatch, Helms, Hutchinson (Ark.), Hutchison (Tex.), Inhofe, Jeffords, Kyl, Lott, Lugar, Mack, McConnell, Murkowski, Nickles, Roberts, Roth, Santorum, Sessions, Smith (N.H.), Smith (Ore.), Snowe, Specter, Stevens, Thomas, Thompson, Thurmond, Voinovich and Warner. DEMOCRATS FOR (38): Akaka, Baucus, Bayh, Biden, Bingaman, Breaux, Byrd, Cleland, Conrad, Daschle, Dodd, Durbin, Edwards, Feinstein, Graham (Fla.), Hollings, Inouye, Johnson, Kennedy, Kerrey (Neb.), Kerry (Mass.), Kohl, Landrieu, Lautenberg, Leahy, Levin, Lieberman, Lincoln, Moynihan, Murray, Reed (R.L), Reid (Nev.), Robb, Rockefeller, Sarbanes, Schumer, Torricelli and Wyden.

REPUBLICANS AGAINST(1): Shelby.

DEMOCRATS AGAINST(7): Boxer, Bryan, Dorgan, Feingold, Harkin, Mikulski and Wellstone.

NOT VOTING: 2 REPUBLICANS (2): Fitzgerald (voted present) and McCain.

The House Democrats were no less enthusiastic in their endorsement of this invitation to plunder--the repeal passed there by a margin of 343-86, with the Donkey Party favoring the measure by a two-to-one margin, 138-69. Current House speaker Nancy Pelosi managed not to register a vote on this one, so great was her fear of offending her party's corporate paymasters even though she knew passage was a sure thing.

According to Wikipedia, many economists "have criticized the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act as contributing to the 2007 subprime mortgage financial crisis. The repeal enabled commercial lenders such as Citigroup, the largest U.S. bank by assets, to underwrite and trade instruments such as mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations and establish so-called structured investment vehicles, or SIVs, that bought those securities. Citigroup played a major part in the repeal. Then called Citicorp, the company merged with Travelers Insurance company the year before using loopholes in Glass-Steagall that allowed for temporary exemptions. With lobbying led by Roger Levy, the 'finance, insurance and real estate industries together are regularly the largest campaign contributors and biggest spenders on lobbying of all business sectors [in 1999]. They laid out more than $200 million for lobbying in 1998, ' according to the Center for Responsive Politics. ' These industries succeeded in their two decades long effort to repeal the act. ' "

This lust for banking largesse is as wanton among Democrats as Republicans--right up to the current presidential campaign. According to the Phoenix Business Journal,

Obama and McCain . . . have accepted a substantial amount of campaign money from Wall Street bankers, investment and securities firms and their executives during this election cycle.

Investment firms have donated $9.9 million to Obama and $6.9 million to McCain this campaign thus far, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Commercial banks have given Obama $2.1 million and McCain $1.9 million. Private equity firms and hedge funds have given Obama $2 million and McCain $1.4 million, according to CFRP.

Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase & Co., UBS and heavyweight law firm DLA Piper are among Obama's top contributors. JP Morgan acquired Bear Stearns with the federal government taking on as much as $30 billion Bear assets as part of the deal. McCain's top donor sources include Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and Blank Rome and Greenberg Traurig LLP law firms.

So . . . the next time a mass-media-lulled Democrat ridicules Ralph Nader for arguing that there are few significant differences between the two major parties on the truly important issues, you might refer them to this atrocity, along with all the other ones.

William Kaufman can be reached at kman484@earthlink.net

Snuffysmith

Sep 20 2008, 08:30 AM

The Government is About to Rescue Us

Hang On to Your Wallets!
By DAVE LINDORFF

When the financial markets started coming undone earlier this week, the Treasury Secretary and the Federal Reserve stepped in, and with $85 billion of our money (actually our children's money, since they borrowed it from China and Saudi Arabia), bought foundering AIG, the world's largest insurance company, and assumed its colossal pile of crap debt.

That didn't help, and the stock market crashed further, falling to levels not seen in three years. Banks, meanwhile, stopped lending, figuring to just hold onto their money and try to weather the crash. The US Treasury and the Fed stepped in again, this time pumping nearly $300 billion more of our money into foreign money markets, and getting European and other governments to do the same in an effort to get the credit markets open again and to stop the stock market swoon. That was on top of some $700 billion already spent on bailouts.

It didn't work. Thursday, the markets continued to fall, well into the afternoon, and it looked like another seriously down day. But then Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson came up with a new idea. He said he and the Bush administration were considering setting up a new agency to assume all the bad debt of the banking sector--meaning all those bad loans they made, and that they lured unsuspecting consumers into taking out, by way of deceptive marketing techniques and outright fraud.

Note that we're talking about perhaps half a trillion dollars here--of our money again. And remember, much or even most of this money will never get repaid, and we're talking about money that could have funded reduced class sizes in every school in America, a national healthcare system, a crash R&D program into non-carbon energy and (not or) a strengthened Social Security and Medicare program.

The drones in the Democratic Party leadership in Congress immediately jumped on the bandwagon, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) urging her charges to act quickly to get some kind of a bill out there to facilitate the bail-out, which could cost anywhere from $600 billion to $1 trillion, but most estimates.

The thing to remember here is that this is not a rescue of the little guy (though the Democrats say their rescue plan, when it appears, will include some kind of relief for people unable to pay their mortgages). Don't hold your breath. Odds are those people facing foreclosure will still be unable to pay their mortgages, and besides, there's no way there will be relief for the majority of homeowners who aren't missing their mortgage payments, but who are struggling mightily to meet them each month.

Primarily, who gets helped by this enforced taxpayer largesse are the fat cats who own all the stock in these financial institutions, all the executives who pay themselves outsize salaries each year for their lousy management records, all these hotshot traders who make the deals that later turn sour, long after they've run off to another job taking their bonuses with them.

We ordinary people, who live from check to check, will feel the pain of this "rescue" in the form of higher taxes in coming years, and in a devalued dollar--because you can bet that all that money they're printing, and all that added debt they're piling on to the mountain of debt already out there is going to make the rest of the world pretty queasy about holding onto dollar-denominated debt, or about buying any more of it.

When you hear a banker say he's going to help you, it pays to hang onto your wallet. When you hear a politician say he's going to help you, hang onto your wallet. If they're both saying the same thing, and especially if one of them is the head of the Federal Reserve Bank, then you better really hang on tight.

Not that that will do any good.

The real answer to this crisis is, firstly, a massive dose of trust-busting, so that no bank or investment bank or insurance company is so big that its failure becomes a threat to the financial system, and thus the government has to rescue it with taxpayer money, and secondly, a return to the era of Glass-Steagall, when it was illegal for banks to also be in the investment banking busiiness.

All the talk of "efficiencies" and of "better service to the customer" that has been endlessly parroted to justify mergers like Citicorp and Travelers, or JP Morgan and Chase Bank, or now Bank of America and Merrill Lynch is fraudulent. Just to give an example, my bank, once known as Willow Grove Bank, a small family-owned institution, was bought by another bank and became Willow Financial. Almost immediately the staffing levels went down. Recently, the combined entity, which ran into trouble, was bought by another institution, Harleyville Bank. Now there are half as many tellers most of the time. As one teller confided, "Every time we get bought, they lay people off."

Of course they do. That's what mergers always do. To recoup the costs of the merger, management cuts back on service and employment.

The truth is, for all the talk about the efficiencies of bigness, getting a mortgage today isn't any cheaper than it was in the 1950s, when there wasn't even any such thing as a national bank that would be "too big to fail."

The real reason we have mega financial institutions is that mega financial institutions pay mega bucks to managers and make mega donations to the campaign coffers of politicians. They also get to put some of those mega-buck managers into key advisory positions in each administration, Republican and Democrat, to ensure that government polices allow them to get even bigger and even richer--and to ensure that when they screw it up, they get rescued at the taxpayers' expense.

DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist. His latest book is "The Case for Impeachment" (St. Martin's Press, 2006 and now available in paperback edition). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

Snuffysmith

Sep 20 2008, 08:36 AM

Investment banking: Is there a future?
The loneliness of the independent Wall Street bank
Derivatives of mass destruction: Nuclear winter looms
The fallout from the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers
Pakistan’s tribal areas: A wild frontier
It will take more than American missiles to bring order to Pakistan’s north-western border region
Lexington: Richard Milhous McCain
Americans cannot escape from the shadow of Tricky Dick

Snuffysmith

Sep 20 2008, 08:38 AM

Paulson Goes All In
Friday, September 19, 2008
Just three days ago, after looking at the prospect of bailing a string of distressed financial institution in the country, the government seemingly drew a line in the sand, and refused to bail out Lehman Brothers.