The first top-to-bottom audit of the Federal Reserve uncovered eye-popping new details about how the U.S. provided a whopping $16 trillion in secret loans to bail out American and foreign banks and businesses during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. An amendment by Sen. Bernie Sanders to the Wall Street reform law passed one year ago this week directed the Government Accountability Office to conduct the study. “As a result of this audit, we now know that the Federal Reserve provided more than $16 trillion in total financial assistance to some of the largest financial institutions and corporations in the United States and throughout the world,” said Sanders. “This is a clear case of socialism for the rich and rugged, you're-on-your-own individualism for everyone else.”
Among the investigation's key findings is that the Fed unilaterally provided trillions of dollars in financial assistance to foreign banks and corporations from South Korea to Scotland, according to the GAO report. “No agency of the United States government should be allowed to bailout a foreign bank or corporation without the direct approval of Congress and the president,” Sanders said.
Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida Lead List of “Toxic 20” States with Most Toxic Air Pollution from Power Plants
Worst States: OH, PA, FL, KY, MD, IN, MI, WV, GA, NC, SC, AL, TX, VA, TN, MO, IL, WI, NH, IA
WASHINGTON (July 20, 2011) — Residents of Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida live in states with the most toxic air pollution from coal- and oil-fired power plants, according to an analysis by the Natural Resources Defense Council.
The study used publicly-available data in the Environmental Protection Agency’s Toxics Release Inventory (TRI). The analysis, entitled “Toxic Power: How Power Plants Contaminate Our Air and States” was jointly released today by NRDC and Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR).
Among the key findings:
Nearly half of all the toxic air pollution reported from industrial sources in the United States comes from coal- and oil-fired power plants.
Power plants are the single largest industrial source of toxic air pollution in 28 states and the District of Columbia.
Koko Observes (in American Sign Language): The above is an excellent example of isolated concern that is going nowhere–never mind the blatant corruption of Congress. If it were combined with a 360 degree toxicity survey showing food poisoning, toxic chemicals in everyday materials, and so on, this would be a great deal more useful. If all of that were integrated into a true cost global game (or in this case, national game), there would be a compellingly useful basis for public outrage one district at a time.
Hacking murdered children's phones, paying off police, destroying evidence of crimes, threatening politicians — UK leaders say Rupert Murdoch's empire has “entered the criminal underworld”. For decades, Murdoch has ruled with impunity — making and breaking governments with his vast media holdings and scaring opponents into silence, but we're fighting back, and winning!
Murdoch's reign of fear is breaking down, and many are on the edge of speaking out against his tactics. The dam is about to break in the US, Australia and elsewhere, but we need to give it an urgent push by investigating Murdoch further, organising high profile opposition, and making sure that our politicians pass laws that will clean up our media for good. Let's make it happen together:
Our community kept campaigning on this issue when almost everyone else in the UK gave up hope. Because we're people-powered, we don't have the same fear of Murdoch that almost everyone else does. It's part of the promise that people power has for change in the world. Today, hope is breaking out in the UK — let's take it global.
Does anyone still remember the GOP of the chowder and marching society, Jell-O salads, Buicks, and cloth coats? Is it conceivable that a Republican could have written the following? —
“Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.”
That was President Eisenhower, writing to his brother Edgar in 1954.
But the Republican Party of 2011 is not your grandfather's GOP, not by a long shot. To be sure, the party always had its share of crackpots, like Robert K. Dornan or William E. Dannemeyer. But the crackpot outliers of two decades ago have become the vital center today: Steve King! Michele Bachman (now a leading presidential candidate as well)! Paul Broun! Patrick McHenry! Virginia Foxx! Louie Gohmert! The Congressional Directory now reads like a casebook of lunacy.
The Republican Party of 2011 believes in three principal tenets (the rest of their platform is essentially window dressing):
1. They solely and exclusively care about their rich contributors, and have built a whole catechism on the protection and further enrichment of America's plutocracy. Their caterwauling about deficit and debt is so much eyewash, intended to con the booboisie. Whatever else President Obama has accomplished (and many of his purported accomplishments are highly suspect), his $4-trillion deficit reduction package did perform the useful service of smoking out Republican hypocrisy. The GOP could not abide so much as a one-tenth of one percent increase on the tax rates of the Walton family (net worth: $86 billion) or the Koch brothers, much less a repeal of the carried interest rule that permits billionaire hedge fund managers to pay income tax at a lower effective rate than cops or nurses.
2. They worship at the altar of Mars. While the me-too Democrats have set a horrible example of keeping up with the Joneses with respect to waging war, they can never match GOP stalwarts such John McCain or Lindsey Graham in their sheer, libidinous enthusiasm for invading other countries. McCain wanted to mix it up with Russia — a nuclear-armed state — during the latter's conflict with Georgia in 2008 (remember? — “we are all Georgians now,” a slogan that did not, fortunately, catch on), while Graham has been persistently agitating for attacks on Iran and intervention in Syria. And these are not fringe elements of the party; they are the leading “defense experts” who always get tapped for the Sunday talk shows. If we are to believe Eric Cantor, a majority of House Republicans will not vote to raise the debt ceiling; yet these are the same people who just passed a defense appropriations bill that increases spending by $17 billion over the prior year's defense appropriation. To borrow Chris Hedges' formulation, war is the force that gives meaning to their lives.
3. Gimme that old time religion. Pandering to religious nuts is a full-time vocation in the GOP. Beginning in the 1970s, religious cranks ceased simply to be a minor public nuisance and grew into the major element of the Republican rank and file. Pat Robertson's strong showing in the 1988 Iowa Caucus signaled the gradual merger of politics and religion in the party. The results are all around us: if the American people poll more like Iranians or Nigerians than Europeans or Canadians on questions of evolution versus creationism, scriptural inerrancy, the existence of angels and demons, and so forth, that result is due to the rise of the Religious Right, its insertion into the public sphere by the Republican Party, and the consequent normalizing of formerly reactionary or quaint beliefs. The Constitution to the contrary notwithstanding, there is now a de facto religious test for the presidency: major candidates are encouraged (or coerced) to “share their feelings” about their “faith” in a revelatory speech; or, some televangelist like Rick Warren dragoons the candidates (as he did with Obama and McCain in 2008) to debate the finer points of Christology, with Warren himself, of course, as the arbiter. Politicized religion is also the sheet anchor of the culture wars. But how did this toxic stew of beliefs come completely to displace Eisenhower Republicanism?
Indeed, if there is one sentiment that unites the crises in Europe and America it is a powerful sense of “baby boomers behaving badly” — a powerful sense that the generation that came of age in the last 50 years, my generation, will be remembered most for the incredible bounty and freedom it received from its parents and the incredible debt burden and constraints it left on its kids.
. . . . . . .
I was struck by one big similarity between what I heard in Tahrir Square in Cairo in February and what one hears in Syntagma Square today. It’s the word “justice.” You hear it more than “freedom.” That is because there is a deep sense of theft in both countries, a sense that the way capitalism played out in Egypt and Greece in the last decade was in its most crony-esque, rigged and corrupt deformation, letting some people get fantastically rich simply because of their proximity to power. So there is a hunger not just for freedom, but for justice. Or, as Rothkopf puts it, “not just for accounting, but for accountability.”
Good show to In the Dark of the Night with the “Three Story lines” I find myself in substantial agreement with all that is said about the downsides. However I might put an additional twist on #1 – Changing Consciousness. It certainly can have the air of fantasy, especially when played in the mode of “The Age of Aquarius.” But the positive side might be that it has happened before on multiple occasions – so why not again? I think there is broad agreement that such shifts have happened, and not just in the esoteric community. Less agreement as to the exact phases and mechanisms of development (evolution) – and mild to wild arguments about the details. Developmental Psychologists, Anthropologists, Sociologists all have their schema – along with the esoteric community. It is even possible to do some useful comparative study, for example, Ken Wilbur’s The Spectrum of Consciousness (Quest Books, 1993)
The schema I offered (my take on the Great Chain) certainly falls at the low end of sophistication when compared to the other efforts, but it has been around a lot longer than all the rest which suggests a certain historical viability. And it was not my purpose to rewrite the history of consciousness, a task for which I have zero competence – but rather to get something on the table for discussion. Five Easy Pieces, as it were – you might say it was “good enough for government work.”
Anyhow, if shifts do take place, and the schema I offered is a rough approximation of the situation – why would that matter? One might argue that you simply had to fold your hands and wait for the inevitable to take place – and many people would do that – so why bother to even think about it? I think there are at least two reasons. First – when life gets confusing it is helpful if you can see the dreck as part of a process as opposed to mad randomness. I’m told that women experience this in the birthing process, each moment of which can seem like insane hell – and it is also an ordered sequence that gets you to a desired outcome (a baby). The second reason is that with some knowledge of the process, it may be possible to facilitate its progress, which of course is what a Midwife does, and Breathing helps.
You don’t design the process, can’t change it – No skipping of steps! But you can facilitate its flow.That is what happens in birthing. Could it also happen in the birthing of consciousness? Not just with each individual, one individual at a time, but all together, or at least in large groups? I think we have more than a few clues as to how that might happen – none of which include storming the walls of the ancient regime or convening the global design team. I think.
I see three story lines in this particular piece and often in much of your work in the past decade since you encountered Tom Atlee and those he introduced you to (one could say he did change your own consciousness):
Line 1. We are going to change consciousness
Line 2. The prior regime needs to be destroyed
Line 3. The times allow for, and cause us to, organize differently
I am sympathetic with all three, but each has its downside.
