Deborah Austin-Ford (letter, April 9) asks what Martin Luther King‘s family would think of the choice of Van Jones as the annual King lecturer at Siena College. While the family's opinion would be of interest, we could turn to what King scholars might say and, even better, to King's own words.
Austin-Ford writes that Jones signed a 911truth.org petition and focuses attention on why communities of color are more likely to suffer environmental degradation and harm than white communities.
On Jones' alleged “socialism,” to this day, some accuse or disparage King for having been a “communist,” largely because he spoke out against U.S. foreign policy on Vietnam and Latin America. King gave many speeches in which he criticized America for its hypocrisy of supporting undemocratic regimes and its seeming pursuit of profit.
The head of the U.S. State Department’s Latin American and Caribbean will resign this summer.
Arturo Valenzuela announced he will leave his post of Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs to return to Georgetown University, where he taught before his appointment by Barack Obama in 2009.
The United States currently doesn’t have ambassadors in Mexico, Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador. There are only rudimentary diplomatic relations with Cuba.
Phi Beta Iota: As with Anne Marie Slaughter, he no doubt has a two-year limit or he loses tenure. It does not really matter who is in the office. Those of us who care about the Caribbean, Central, and South America have known since 2008 that there is no difference between the policies or lack thereof of the Bush-Cheney Administration, and those of the Obama-Clinton Administration. When Huge Chavez handed Barack Obama a copy of Open Veins of Latin America–Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent it became the duty of every person of integrity to read that book. Evidently Barack Obama chose not to read it, and just as he misled all US citizens into thinking that he represented change, so also has he failed the entire Southern Hemisphere.
I gave a little talk at a financial conference (Casey Research) that included the following very simple economic scenario:
Oil prices are going up (inexorably). China + Peak Oil + Financial diversification. Oil doesn't stop going up until GDP goes down. It's an inexorable force until then.
The US middle class is broken. A hollow husk unable to withstand the slightest gust. Regardless, it's the ultimate source of demand for the global economy. It's an immovable barrier.
When oil hits ~$150 a barrel the impact occurs between inexorable force and immovable barrier. The combo of higher prices at the pump and for everything else (food and other essentials) starts to crush middle class budgets and force defaults. The economy shrinks until the price of oil goes down enough to be affordable again (for those still left in the middle class).
We keep repeat the pattern above until we're in the second depression (D2). Long term low demand.
Phi Beta Iota: This is precisely why the BRICS (now including South Africa) and a new coalition, perhaps led by Cuba and Venezuela since Chile is refusing to lead, should focus on the immediate challenge of creating infinite free renewable energy–the foundation for global non-zero advances. Such a strategy would be inherently ethical, legal, citizen-centered, and non-violent as well as non-intrusive on any conceivable concept of sovereignty or indigenous privilege.
Bert Laden was buried at sea within 24 hours of being gunned down in what was probably a CIA safehouse set up with help from Blackwater. Claims by the White House and CIA that DNA confirmation of his identity are bogus.
DNA tests take 3-10 days to run and are not something that can be done in flight or at sea.
The consortium in charge of restructuring the world’s most infamous private-security firm just added a new chief in charge of keeping the company on the straight and narrow. Yes, John Ashcroft, the former U.S. attorney general, is now an “independent director” of Xe Services, formerly known as Blackwater.
Ashcroft will head Xe’s new “subcommittee on governance,” its backers announced early Wednesday in a statement. The subcommittee is designed to “maximize governance, compliance and accountability” and “promote the
highest degrees of ethics and professionalism within the private-security industry.”
Last Saturday's issue of Barron's ran a cover story on the deficit and their own take on how to address it. In contrast to the recent recommendations from President Obama and the House Republicans, defense was actually “on the table,” not “at” it. In the absence of any adult thinking on the deficit since the Deficit Commission in December, Barron's addresses a void that remains vast and empty in Congress and the Executive branch. The article puts on the table a defense recommendation — which I urged to them — that goes significantly deeper than even the Deficit Commission's — in truth fuzzy — recommendation on “security” spending.
Almost immediately, Forbes published at its website a related piece on defense spending and The Pentagon Labyrinth that contains some interesting private sector views on how the public might be beginning to perceive the current size of the defense budget and condition of our armed forces: note the references to “defense entitlement,” “defense bubble,” and “parade ground military.” It would seem that the paradigm is changing, at least outside Washington DC. (If you think that the recent killing of bin Laden proves the “parade ground” moniker wrong, I urge you to read the introduction essay in The Pentagon Labyrinth: “Why Is This Handbook Necessay?“.
Grow Up, Guys!
By GENE EPSTEIN
Barron's Cover SATURDAY, APRIL 30, 2011
While the President and GOP sling mud at each other, the debt crisis is growing. Barron's offers some tough-but necessary-ways to alleviate it.
Phi Beta Iota: It is possible to eliminate the deficit by making Medicare prices honest and stopping the borrowing of money for corporate pork that feeds political pork. It is possible to eliminate personal income taxes by adopting the Automated Payment Transaction (APT) Tax, which actually produces a great deal more revenue which is desperately needed to bail out the equally irresponsible state governments and pension funds (both government and corporate). America is hosed. It is not possible to “reset” until Washington can combine intelligence and integrity, and that may require a public revolt on both taxes and the fraudulent corrupt Electoral System that keeps the two-party tyranny in a position to continue looting the Commonwealth.
The rise in national security secrecy in the first full year of the Obama Administration was matched by a sharp increase in the financial costs of the classification system, according to a new report to the President (pdf).
The estimated costs of the national security classification system grew by 15% last year to reach $10.17 billion, according to the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO). It was the first time that annual secrecy costs in government were reported to exceed $10 billion.
An additional $1.25 billion was incurred within industry to protect classified information, for a grand total of $11.42 in classification-related costs, also a new record high.
