I said all this a million times but now that it is too late, a believable source: Martial Law, the financial bailout, and war by Prof. Peter D. Scott!

Global Research, January 8, 2009
Paulson’s Financial Bailout
It is becoming clear that the bailout measures of late 2008 may have consequences at least as grave for an open society as the response to 9/11 in 2001. Many members of Congress felt coerced into voting against their inclinations, and the normal procedures for orderly consideration of a bill were dispensed with.

The excuse for bypassing normal legislative procedures was the existence of an emergency. But one of the most reprehensible features of the legislation, that it allowed Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to permit bailed-out institutions to use public money for exorbitant salaries and bonuses, was inserted by Paulson after the immediate crisis had passed.

According to Congressman Peter Welch (D-Vermont) the bailout bill originally called for a cap on executive salaries, but Paulson changed the requirement at the last minute. Welch and other members of Congress were enraged by “news that banks getting taxpayer-funded bailouts are still paying exorbitant salaries, bonuses, and other benefits.”

1 In addition, as AP reported in October, “Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. questioned allowing banks that accept bailout bucks to continue paying dividends on their common stock. `There are far better uses of taxpayer dollars than continuing dividend payments to shareholders,’ he said.”

2 Even more reprehensible is the fact that since the bailouts, Paulson and the Treasury Department have refused to provide details of the Troubled Assets Relief Program spending of hundreds of billions of dollars, while the New York Federal Reserve has refused to provide information about its own bail-out (using government-backed loans) that amounts to trillions. This lack of transparency has been challenged by Fox TV in a FOIA suit against the Treasury Department, and a suit by Bloomberg News against the Fed.

3 The financial bailout legislation of September 2008 was only passed after members of both Congressional houses were warned that failure to act would threaten civil unrest and the imposition of martial law. U.S. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., and U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., both said U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson brought up a worst-case scenario as he pushed for the Wall Street bailout in September. Paulson, former Goldman Sachs CEO, said that might even require a declaration of martial law, the two noted.

4 Here are the original remarks by Senator Inhofe: Speaking on Tulsa Oklahoma ’s 1170 KFAQ, when asked who was behind threats of martial law and civil unrest if the bailout bill failed, Senator James Inhofe named Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson as the source. “Somebody in D.C. was feeding you guys quite a story prior to the bailout, a story that if we didn’t do this we were going to see something on the scale of the depression, there were people talking about martial law being instituted, civil unrest.who was feeding you guys this stuff?,” asked host Pat Campbell. “That’s Henry Paulson,” responded Inhofe, “We had a conference call early on, it was on a Friday I think – a week and half before the vote on Oct. 1. So it would have been the middle what was it – the 19th of September, we had a conference call. In this conference call – and I guess there’s no reason for me not to repeat what he said, but he said – he painted this picture you just described. He said, ‘This is serious. This is the most serious thing that we faced.’”

5 Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA 27th District) reported the same threat on the Congressional floor (Rep. Sherman later downplayed his remarks slightly on the Alex Jones show):
“The only way they can pass this bill is by creating a panic atmosphere. Many of us were told that the sky would fall. A few of us were even told that there would be martial law in America if we voted no. That’s what I call fear-mongering, unjustified, proven wrong.”

6 So it is clear that threats of martial law were used to get this reprehensible bailout legislation passed. It also seems clear that Congress was told of a threat of martial law, not itself threatened. It is still entirely appropriate to link such talk to the Army’s rapid moves to redefine its role as one of controlling the American people, not just protecting them. In a constitutional polity based on balance of powers, we see the emergence of a radical new military power that is as yet completely unbalanced.

The Army’s New Role in 2001: Not Protecting American Society, but Controlling It
This new role for the Army is not wholly unprecedented. The U.S. military had been training troops and police in "civil disturbance planning" for the last three decades. The master plan, Department of Defense Civil Disturbance Plan 55-2, or "Operation Garden Plot," was developed in 1968 in response to the major protests and disturbances of the 1960s.

But on January 19, 2001, on the last day of the Clinton administration, the U.S. Army promulgated a new and permanent Continuity of Operations (COOP) Program. It encapsulated its difference from the preceding, externally-oriented Army Survival, Recovery, and Reconstitution System (ASRRS) as follows:
a. In 1985, the Chief of Staff of the Army established the Army Survival, Recovery, and Reconstitution System (ASRRS) to ensure the continuity of essential Army missions and functions.
ASRRS doctrine was focused primarily on a response to the worst case 1980's threat of a massive nuclear laydown on CONUS as a result of a confrontation with the Soviet Union .

b. The end of the Cold War and the breakup of the former Soviet Union significantly reduced the probability of a major nuclear attack on CONUS but the probability of other threats has increased. Army organizations must be prepared for any contingency with a potential for interruption of normal operations.
To emphasize that Army continuity of operations planning is now focused on the full all-hazards threat spectrum, the name "ASRRS" has been replaced by the more generic title “Continuity of Operations (COOP) Program.”

7 This document embodied the secret Continuity of Operations (COG) planning conducted secretly by Rumsfeld, Cheney, and others through the 1980s and 1990s.

8 This planning was initially for continuity measures in the event of a nuclear attack, but soon called for suspension of the Constitution, not just “after a nuclear war” but for any “national security emergency.” This was defined in Reagan’s Executive Order 12656 of November 18, 1988 as “any occurrence, including natural disaster, military attack, technological emergency, or other emergency, that seriously degrades or seriously threatens the national security of the United States .” The effect was to impose on domestic civil society the extreme measures once planned for a response to a nuclear attack from abroad.

9 In like fashion ARR 500-3 Regulation clarified that it was a plan for “the execution of mission-essential functions without unacceptable interruption during a national security or domestic emergency.” Donald Rumsfeld, who as a private citizen had helped author the COG planning, promptly signed and implemented the revised ARR 500-3. Eight months later, on 9/11, Cheney and Rumsfeld implemented COG, a significant event of which we still know next to nothing. What we do know is that plans began almost immediately – as foreseen by COG planning the 1980s -- to implement warrantless surveillance and detention of large numbers of civilians, and that in January 2002 the Pentagon submitted a proposal for deploying troops on American streets.

10 Then in April 2002, Defense officials implemented a plan for domestic U.S. military operations by creating a new U.S. Northern Command (CINC-NORTHCOM) for the continental United States .11 In short, what were being implemented were the most prominent features of the COG planning which Oliver North had worked on in the 1980s.

Deep Events and Changes of Party in the White House :

Like so many other significant steps since World War Two towards a military-industrial state, the Army’s Regulation 500-3 surfaced in the last days of a departing administration (in this case the very last day). It is worth noticing that, ever since the 1950s, dubious events--of the unpublic variety I have called deep events--have marked the last months before a change of party in the White House. These deep events have tended to a) constrain incoming presidents, if the incomer is a Democrat, or alternatively b) to pave the way for the incomer, if he is a Republican.

Consider, in the first category, the following (when a Republican was succeeded by a Democrat):

* In December 1960 the CIA secured approval for the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba , and escalated events in Laos into a crisis for which the Joint Chiefs proposed sending 60,000 troops. These events profoundly affected President Kennedy’s posture towards Cuba and Indochina .

* In 1976 CIA Director George H.W. Bush installed an outside Team B intelligence unit to enlarge drastically estimates of the Soviet threat to the United States , eventually frustrating and reversing presidential candidate Jimmy Carter’s campaign pledge to cut the U.S. defense budget.12

Equally important were events in the second category (when a Democrat was succeeded by a Republican):

* In late 1968 Kissinger, while advising the Johnson administration, gave secret information to the Nixon campaign that helped Nixon to obstruct the peace agreement in Vietnam that was about to be negotiated at the peace talks then taking place in Paris. (According to Seymour Hersh,“The Nixon campaign, alerted by Kissinger to the impending success of the peace talks, was able to get a series of messages to the Thieu government” in Saigon. making it clear that a Nixon presidency would offer a better deal. This was a major factor in securing the defeat of Democratic candidate Hubert Humphrey.

13 Kissinger was not the kind of person to have betrayed his president on his own personal initiative. At the time Nixon’s campaign manager, John Mitchell (one of the very few in on the secret), told Hersh that “I thought Henry [Kissinger] was doing it because Nelson [Rockefeller] wanted him to. Nelson asked Henry to help and he did.”

14 * In 1980 the so-called October Surprise, with the help of people inside CIA, helped ensure that the Americans held hostage in Iran would not be returned before the inauguration of Reagan. This was a major factor in securing the defeat of incumbent Jimmy Carter.

15 Once again, the influence of the Rockefellers can be discerned. A CIA officer later reported hearing Joseph V. Reed, an aide to David Rockefeller, comment in 1981 to William Casey, the newly installed CIA Director, about their joint success in disrupting Carter’s plans to bring home the hostages.

16 Both the financial bailout, extorted from Congress and the escalated preparations for martial law can be seen as transitional events of the first category. Whatever the explanations for their timing, they will constrain Obama’s freedom to make his own policies. I fear moreover they may have the consequence of easing this country into unforeseen escalations of the Afghan war.
The Intensive Quiet Preparations for Martial Law

Let us deal first with the preparations for martial law. On September 30, 2008, the Army Times announced the redeployment of an active Brigade Army Team from Iraq to America , in a new mission that “may become a permanent part of the active Army”:

The 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team has spent 35 of the last 60 months in Iraq patrolling in full battle rattle, helping restore essential services and escorting supply convoys.
Now they’re training for the same mission — with a twist — at home.

Beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months, the 1st BCT will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command, as an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks. . . . After 1st BCT finishes its dwell-time mission, expectations are that another, as yet unnamed, active-duty brigade will take over and that the mission will be a permanent one. . . .They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control.

17 This announcement followed by two weeks the talk of civil unrest and martial law that was used to panic the Congress into passing Paulson’s bailout legislation. Not only that, the two unprecedented events mirror each other: the bailout debate anticipated civil unrest and martial law, while the announced positioning of an active Brigade Combat Team on U.S. soil anticipated civil unrest (such as might result from the bailout legislation).

Then on December 17, 2008, US Northern Command chief General Renuart announced that “the US military plans to mobilize thousands of troops to protect Washington against potential terrorist attack during the inauguration of president-elect Barack Obama.”

18 The US Army War College has also raised the possibility of the U.S. Army being used to control civil unrest, according to the Phoenix Business Journal:

A new report by the U.S. Army War College talks about the possibility of Pentagon resources and troops being used should the economic crisis lead to civil unrest, such as protests against businesses and government or runs on beleaguered banks. “Widespread civil violence inside the United States would force the defense establishment to reorient priorities in extremis to defend basic domestic order and human security,” said the War College report.

The study says economic collapse, terrorism and loss of legal order are among possible domestic shocks that might require military action within the U.S.

19 It is clear that there has been a sustained move in the direction of martial law preparations, a trend that has been as continuous as it has been unheralded. Senator Leahy was thus right to draw our attention to it back on September 29, 2006, in his objections to the final form of the Fiscal Year 2007 National Defense Authorization Act, which gave the president increased power to call up the National Guard for law enforcement:

It . . . should concern us all that the Conference agreement includes language that subverts solid, longstanding posse comitatus statutes that limit the military’s involvement in law enforcement, thereby making it easier for the President to declare martial law. There is good reason for the constructive friction in existing law when it comes to martial law declarations.

20 This quiet agglomeration of military power has not “just growed,” like Topsy, through inadvertence. It shows sustained intention, even if no one has made a public case for it.
How the Bush Administration Protected Predatory Lending and Let the Financial Crisis Grow
Let us now consider the financial crisis and the panic bailout. No one should think that the crisis was unforeseen. Back in February Eliot Spitzer, in one of his last acts as governor of New York , warned about the impending crisis created by predatory lending, and reveled that the Bush Administration was blocking state efforts to deal with it. His extraordinary warning, in the Washington Post, is worth quoting at some length:

Several years ago, state attorneys general and others involved in consumer protection began to notice a marked increase in a range of predatory lending practices by mortgage lenders.
Even though predatory lending was becoming a national problem, the Bush administration looked the other way and did nothing to protect American homeowners. In fact, the government chose instead to align itself with the banks that were victimizing consumers. . . . Several state legislatures, including New York 's, enacted laws aimed at curbing such practices. . . .Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye.

Let me explain: The administration accomplished this feat through an obscure federal [Treasury] agency called the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). The OCC has been in existence since the Civil War. Its mission is to ensure the fiscal soundness of national banks. For 140 years, the OCC examined the books of national banks to make sure they were balanced, an important but uncontroversial function. But a few years ago, for the first time in its history, the OCC was used as a tool against consumers.

In 2003, during the height of the predatory lending crisis, the OCC invoked a clause from the 1863 National Bank Act to issue formal opinions preempting all state predatory lending laws, thereby rendering them inoperative. The OCC also promulgated new rules that prevented states from enforcing any of their own consumer protection laws against national banks. The federal government's actions were so egregious and so unprecedented that all 50 state attorneys general, and all 50 state banking superintendents, actively fought the new rules.
But the unanimous opposition of the 50 states did not deter, or even slow, the Bush administration in its goal of protecting the banks. In fact, when my office opened an investigation of possible discrimination in mortgage lending by a number of banks, the OCC filed a federal lawsuit to stop the investigation.

21 Eliot Spitzer submitted his Op Ed to the Washington Post on February 13. If it had an impact, it was not the one Spitzer had hoped for. On March 10 the New York Times broke the story of Spitzer’s encounter with a prostitute. According to a later Times story, “on Feb. 13 [the day Spitzer’s Op Ed went up on the Washington Post website] federal agents staked out his hotel in Washington .”
22 It is remarkable that the Mainstream Media found Spitzer’s private life to be big news, but not his charges that Paulson’s Treasury was prolonging the financial crisis, or the relation of these charges to Spitzer’s exposure. As a weblog commented,
The US news media failed to draw the obvious connection between the bizarre federal law enforcement investigation and leak campaign about the private life of New York Governor Spitzer and Spitzer's all out attack on the Bush administration for its collusion with predatory lenders.

While the international credit system grinds to a halt because of a superabundance of bad mortgage loans made in the US , the news media failed to cover the details of Spitzer's public charges against the White House.
Yet when salacious details were leaked about alleged details of Spitzer's private life, they took that information and made it the front page news for days.

23 After Spitzer’s Op Ed was published, according to Greg Palast, the Federal Reserve, “for the first time in its history, loaned a selected coterie of banks one-fifth of a trillion dollars to guarantee these banks’ mortgage-backed junk bonds. The deluge of public loot was an eye-popping windfall to the very banking predators who have brought two million families to the brink of foreclosure.”

24 What are we to make of Spitzer’s charge that the Bush administration interfered to preempt state laws against predatory lending, and of the fact that the mainstream media did not report that? A petty motive for the OCC’s behavior in 2003 might have been to allow the housing bubble to continue through 2003 and 2004, thus facilitating Bush’s re-election. But the persistence of Treasury obstruction thereafter, despite the unanimous opposition of all fifty states, and the continuing silence of the media about this disagreement, suggest that some broader policy intention may have been at stake.

One is struck by the similarities with the Savings and Loan scandal which was allowed to continue through the Reagan 1980s, long after it became apparent that deliberate bankruptcy was being used by unscrupulous profiteers to amass illegal fortunes at what was ultimately public expense.

25 In the same way, the long drawn-out housing bubble of the current Bush decade, and particularly the derivative bubble that was floated upon it, allowed the Bush administration to help offset the trillion-dollar-plus cost of its Iraq misadventure,
26 by creating spurious securities that sold for hundreds of billions, not just in the United States, but through the rest of the world.

In the long run, this was not a sustainable source of wealth for America ’s financial class, which is now suffering like everyone else from the consequent recession. But in the short run, the financial crisis and bailout made it possible for Bush to wage a costly war without experiencing the kind of debilitating inflation that was brought on by America ’s Vietnam War.
The trillion dollar meltdown,

27 in other words, can be rationalized as having helped finance the Iraq War. When we turn to the martial law preparations, however, they are being made in anticipation of civil unrest in the future. Why such intense preparation for this?

The obvious answer of course is memory of the rioting that occurred in San Francisco and elsewhere during the great depression of the 1930s. Indeed that thought may be uppermost among those who recently arranged for the redeployment of a Brigade Combat Team from Iraq to America . But the planning for martial law in America dates back almost three decades, from the days when Reagan appointed Rumsfeld, Cheney and others to plan secretly for what was misleadingly called Continuity [i.e., Change] of Government. Concern about the 2008 recession cannot have been on their minds then, or on those who introduced the Army’s “Continuity of Operations (COOP) Program” on January 19, 2001. Instead the “full all-hazards threat spectrum” envisaged in that document was clearly ancillary to the doctrine of “full-spectrum dominance” that had been articulated in the Joint Chiefs of Staff blueprint, Joint Vision 2020, endorsed eight months earlier on May 30, 2000.28

The interest of Cheney and Rumsfeld in COG planning, including planning for martial law, also envisaged full spectrum dominance. This is made clear by their simultaneous engagement in the 1990s in the public Project for the New American Century (PNAC). PNAC’s goals were stated very explicitly in their document Rebuilding America ’s Defenses: to increase defense spending so as to establish America ’s military presence throughout the world as an unchallengeable power. This would entail permanent U.S. forces in central as well as east Asia, even after the disappearance[jam1] of Saddam Hussein.

29 In short PNAC’s program was a blueprint for permanent overseas American empire, a project they recognized would not be easily accepted by an American democracy. Their call frankly acknowledged that it would be difficult to gain support for their projected increase in defense spending to “a minimum level of 3.5 to 3.8 percent of gross domestic product, adding $15 billion to $20 billion to total defense spending annually.” “The process of transformation,” the document admitted, “is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event—like a new Pearl Harbor .”

30 There is of course every reason to hope that the disastrous era of Rumsfeld and Cheney is about to end, with the election of Barack Obama. Obama has made it clear that he will pursue a foreign policy dedicated to diplomacy and multilateralism. In this spirit he has declared his willingness to talk to Iran without preconditions.
But Obama’s stated reason for disengagement from Iraq – “The scale of our deployments in Iraq continues to set back our ability to finish the fight in Afghanistan ”

31 – is very ominous. Few serious students of the Afghan scene believe that America can “finish the fight in Afghanistan ,” any more successfully than could the Russians or British before them. The U.S. position there is visibly deteriorating, while the U.S. strategy of cross-border attacks is having the effect of destabilizing Pakistan as well. The U.S.-backed Karzai regime has so little control over the countryside that Kabul itself is now coming under rocket attack. Experts on the scene agree that any effort to “finish” will be a long-term proposition requiring at a minimum a vastly escalated commitment of U.S. troops.

32 One cannot predict the future, but one can examine the past. For thirty years I have been writing about the persistence in America of a war mentality that, time after time, trumps reasonable policies of negotiation, and leads us further into armed conflict. This dominant mindset is not restricted to any single agency or cabal, but is rather the likely outcome of on-going tensions between hawks and doves in the internal politics of Washington .

If a container of rocks and gravel is shaken vigorously, the probability is that the gravel will gravitate towards the bottom, leaving the largest rocks at the top. There is an analogous probability that, in an on-going debate over engaging or withdrawing from a difficult military contest, the forces for engagement will come out on top, regardless of circumstances. Available military power tends to be used, and one of the most remarkable features of history since 1945 is that this tendency has not so far repeated itself with atomic weapons.

Let me explain this metaphor in more concrete detail. Progressive societies (in this era usually democracies) tend to expand their presence beyond their geographic boundaries. This expanded presence calls for new institutions, usually (like the CIA) free from democratic accountability. This accretion of unaccountable power, in what I have elsewhere called the deep state, disrupts the public state’s system of checks and balances which is the underpinning of sane, deliberative policy.

We might expect of progressive democracies that they would evolve towards more and more rational foreign policies. But because of the dialectic just described, what we see is the exact opposite – evolution towards foolish and sometimes disastrous engagements. When Britain became more democratic in the late 19th Century, it also initiated the Boer War, a war very suited to the private imperial needs of Cecil Rhodes, but irrelevant if not deleterious to the interests of the British people.

33 Hitler’s dreams of a Third Reich, entailing a doomed repeat of Napoleon’s venture into the heart of Russia , suited the needs of the German industrialists who had financed the Nazis; but from the outset sane heads of the German military staff could foresee the coming disaster.
For over a half century now, beginning with Vietnam , unaccountable forces have been maneuvering America into unsustainable adventures on the Asian mainland. We now know that Kennedy did not intend ever to commit U.S. combat troops to Vietnam .

34 But the fatal planning to expand the Vietnam War north of the 17th parallel was authorized in the last week of his aborted presidency, probably without his being aware.
35 When elected, Jimmy Carter was determined to reduce the size and frequency of CIA covert operations.
36 Yet his national security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, initiated maneuvers in Afghanistan that led to the largest CIA covert operation (and in my view, one of the most deleterious) of all time.
37 Our archival historians have not yet fully understood either paradox, or the forces behind them. And as the philosopher George Santayana famously observed, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

38 The Future: Military Escalation Abroad and at Home?
Like both Kennedy and Carter, Barack Obama is a complex mix of hopeful and depressing qualities. Among the latter are his unqualified desire to “finish” (i.e., “win”) the war in Afghanistan , and his support, along with his party’s, for the final version of the Paulson bailout. In my view they go together.

Like the government negotiated resolution of the savings-and-loan-scandal of the 1980s, the financial bailout undisguisedly taxed the public wealth of the republic to protect and even enrich those who for some time had been undeservedly enriching themselves. Old-line leftists might see nothing unusual about this: it conforms to their analysis of how the capitalist state has always worked.

But it is only characteristic of the American state since the Reagan revolution of the 1980s. Before that time governmental policies were more likely to be directed towards helping the poor; afterwards the ideology of free-market literalism, even under Clinton , was invoked in numerous ways for the enriching of the rich.

The result of these government policies has been summarized by Prof. Edward Wolff:
We have had a fairly sharp increase in wealth inequality dating back to 1975 or 1976. Prior to that, there was a protracted period when wealth inequality fell in this country, going back almost to 1929. So you have this fairly continuous downward trend from 1929, which of course was the peak of the stock market before it crashed, until just about the mid-1970s. Since then, things have really turned around, and the level of wealth inequality today is almost double what it was in the mid-1970s..

Up until the early 1970s, the U.S. actually had lower wealth inequality than Great Britain , and even than a country like Sweden . But things have really turned around over the last 25 or 30 years. In fact, a lot of countries have experienced lessening wealth inequality over time. The U.S. is atypical in that inequality has risen so sharply over the last 25 or 30 years.

39 Past excesses of American wealth, as in the Gilded Age and the 1920s, have been followed by political reforms, such as the income tax, to reduce wealth and income disparity. But as Kevin Phillips has warned, this type of reform must happen again soon, or it may not happen at all:
As the twenty-first century gets underway, the imbalance of wealth and democracy in the United States is unsustainable. . . . Either democracy must be renewed, with politics brought back to life, or wealth is likely to cement a new and less democratic regime—plutocracy by some other name.

40 Judged by this criterion, the Paulson bailout as passed was not just an opportunity missed; it was a radical leap in the wrong direction. It is not reassuring that the bailout was passed with the support of Obama and the Democratic Party. This is rather a sign that plutocracy will not be seriously challenged by either party in their present state.

Warren Buffett may have been correct in saying that the bailout was necessary. But it is not hard to think of reforms that should have accompanied it:
1) there should have been transparency, not secrecy
2) public funds should not have been made available for bonuses or dividends (The richest 10 percent of Americans own 85 percent of all stock).

41 And as a bailout for the automobile industry is debated, two more reforms seem self-evident:
3) any reduction in income should not affect workers alone, but all levels of employees equally
4) as has often been suggested, a limit should be established by law to the maximum ratio of the highest remuneration to the lowest in any industry – perhaps a ratio of twenty to one.

I am not making these obvious suggestions with any expectation that they will be passed or seriously debated. The plutocratic corruption of both our parties makes such a prospect almost unthinkable.

What I do want to contemplate is the serious prospect of war. America escaped from the depression of the 1890s with the Spanish-American War.

42 It only escaped the Great Depression of the 1930s with the Second World War. There was even a recession in the late 1940s from which America only escaped with the Korean War. As we face the risk of major depression again, I believe we inevitably face the danger of major war again.

In the meantime, some aspects of the financial meltdown, although they arose for many reasons and were not the result of some conspiratorial cabal, may be prolonged because of their utility to the war-minded. Consider that, from the perspective of maintaining America ’s imperial thrust into Afghanistan (and even Pakistan ), the financial crisis has had some desired consequences:

1) The dollar’s value against other international currencies, notably the euro, has improved, thus improving America ’s balance of payments and also offsetting the threat to the dollar’s important role as the primary unit of international trade.
2) Thanks to the determined international marketing of overvalued derivatives based on predatory lending, the resulting financial crisis has been internationalized, with economies elsewhere suffering even greater shocks than the United States . This has relatively improved America ’s capacity to finance a major war effort overseas (which has always had a major impact on the U.S. balance of payments).
3) The price of oil has plummeted from $147 a barrel last July to under $40, thus weakening the economies of Russia , China , and especially Saudi Arabia , the country whose international foundations have been supporting Al Qaeda.
The Afghan situation is grim, but it is not hopeless. Two skilled observers, Barnett R. Rubin and Ahmed Rashid, have proposed a political solution for the entire region that would promise greater security for the entire area than Obama’s ill-considered proposal to send 20,000 more U.S. troops.

43 In Rashid’s words, President-elect Obama and Western leaders have to adopt a comprehensive approach that sees the region [with Afghanistan's neighbors, including Pakistan, India, Russia, China, Iran, and the former Soviet states] as a unit with interlocking development issues to be resolved such as poverty, illiteracy and weak governance. There has to be a more comprehensive but more subtle approach to democratising the region and forcing powerful but negative stakeholders in local power structures - such as the drug mafias - either to change their thinking or be eliminated.

44 That observers with such recognized status are offering a sensible political solution does not provide me with much optimism. For three decades now Barnett Rubin has been offering sound advice on Iran and Afghanistan to Washington , only to be ignored by those lobbying for covert operations and military solutions. This dialectic is reminiscent of the Vietnam War, where for over a decade reasonable proposals to demilitarize the conflict were similarly ignored.
I repeat that the future is unpredictable. But I fear that Obama’s proposal to send 20,000 additional troops will carry the day, with its predictable consequences of a wider war in both Afghanistan and Pakistan .

45 With this I also fear an increased use of the U.S. Army to control protests by the American people.
I earnestly hope that my fears are misplaced. Time will tell.
NOTES

1.WCAX, Burlington , Vermont - December 22, 2008, http://www.wcax.com/Global/story.asp?S=9567271. Cf. CNBC, October 30, 2008, http://www.cnbc.com/id/27423117: “`You can get paid $30 million under this program,’ says Michael Kesner, who heads Deloitte Consulting's executive compensation practice. `There's no limit on what you can get paid.’”
2 John Dunbar, AP, October 25, 2007, http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/081025/meltdown_evolving_bailout.html .
3.David Hirst, “Fox joins battle cry for details of US bail-out,” BusinessDay, December 24, 2008, http://www.businessday.com.au/business/fox-joins-battle-cry-for-details-of-us-bailout-20081223-74eh.html?page=-1.
4 http://phoenix.bizjournals.com/phoenix/stories/2008/12/15/daily34.html.
5. http://www.blacklistednews.com/news-2367-0-13-13--.html.

6. Rep. Brad Sherman, in the House, 8:07 EST PM, October 2, 2008, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaG9d_4zij8&NR=1. Rep. Sherman later issued the following clarification: “I have no reason to think that any of the leaders in Congress who were involved in negotiating with the Bush Administration regarding the bailout bill ever mentioned the possibility of martial law -- again, that was just an example of extreme and deliberately hyperbolic comments being passed around by members not directly involved in the negotiations.” Cf. Rep. Sherman on Alex Jones show, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bH1mO8qhCs. .
7 Army Regulation 500-3, Emergency Employment of Army And Other Resources, Army Continuity Of Operations (COOP) Program, http://www.wikileaks.org/leak/us-army-reg-500-3-continuity-2001.pdf, emphasis added. Cf. Tom Burghardt, “Militarizing the `Homeland’ in Response to the Economic and Political Crisis: NORTHCOM's Joint Task Force-Civil Support,” GlobalResearch, October 11, 2008, http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10534 .
8 Peter Dale Scott, The Ro
ad to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America ( Berkeley and Los Angeles : University of California Press , 2007), 183-87; cf. James Mann, The Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush’s War Cabinet ( New York : Viking, 2004), 138-45,
9 Scott, The Road to 9/11, 183-87.

10 Ritt Goldstein , “Foundations are in place for martial law in the US ,” Sydney Morning Herald, July 27 2002, http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/07/27/1027497418339.html.
11 Peter Dale Scott, The Road to 9/11, 240-41.
12 Scott, The Road to 9/11, 60-61.
13 Robert Parry, “Henry Kissinger, Eminence Noire,” ConsortiumNews, December 28, 2008, http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/122808.html:

“Kissinger, – while serving as a peace-talk adviser to the Johnson administration – made obstruction of the peace talks possible by secretly contacting people working for Nixon, according to Seymour Hersh’s 1983 book, The Price of Power [p. 21]. 14 Hersh, Price of Power, 18. Cf. Jim Hougan, Spooks: The Haunting of America (New York: William Morrow, 1978), 435: “Kissinger, married to a former Rockefeller aide, owner of a Georgetown mansion whose purchase was enabled only by Rockefeller gifts and loans, was always the protégé of his patron, Nelson R[ockefeller], even when he wasn’t directly employed by him.”15 Scott, The Road to 9/11, 93-118.16 Scott, The Road to 9/11, 82-87, 91, 104-05.17 “Brigade homeland tours start Oct. 1,” Army Times, September 30, 2008,
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/09/army_homeland_090708w/.

Cf. Michel Chossudovsky, “Pre-election Militarization of the North American Homeland, US Combat Troops in Iraq repatriated to `help with civil unrest,’"GlobalResearch, September 26, 2008, http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10341.

18 Agence France-Presse, December 17, 2008, http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iTBOy3JF8pVAthIthq8C1NrMf4Cg. 19 http://phoenix.bizjournals.com/phoenix/stories/2008/12/15/daily34.html.

20 Remarks Of Sen. Patrick Leahy, National Defense Authorization Act For Fiscal Year 2007Conference Report, Congressional Record, September 29, 2006, http://leahy.senate.gov/press/200609/092906b.html.
21 Eliot Spitzer, “Predatory Lenders' Partner in Crime: How the Bush Administration Stopped the States From Stepping In to Help Consumers,” Washington Post, February 14, 2008; A25, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/13/AR2008021302783.html?nav=hcmodule .

Three months earlier, on November 8, 2007, Governor Spitzer and New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo had published a joint letter to Congress, “calling for continued federal action to combat subprime lending practices” (http://www.state.ny.us/governor/press/1108071.html).

22 David Johnston and Philip Shenon, “ U.S. Defends Tough Tactics on Spitzer,” New York Times, March 21, 2008.
23 “Why Eliot Spitzer was assassinated: The predatory lending industry had a partner in the White House,” Brasscheck TV, March 2008, http://brasschecktv.com/page/291.html.
24 Greg Palast, “Eliot’s Mess: The $200 billion bail-out for predator banks and Spitzer charges are intimately linked,” Air America Radio’s Clout, March 14, 2008, http://www.gregpalast.com/elliot-spitzer-gets-nailed/

25 Without suggesting that the scandal was in any way centrally orchestrated or directed, it can be argued that the scandal was permitted to drag on so long because it was allowing profits from the illegal drug traffic to recapitalize the American economy and strengthen the beleaguered U.S. dollar.
26 Joseph E. Stiglitz and Linda J. Bilmes, The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict ( New York : W.W. Norton, 2008). Cf. Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes, “The three trillion dollar war,” The Times ( London ), February 23, 2008, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article3419840.ece:

“On the eve of war, there were discussions of the likely costs. Larry Lindsey, President Bush's economic adviser and head of the National Economic Council, suggested that they might reach $200 billion. But this estimate was dismissed as “baloney” by the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld. His deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, suggested that postwar reconstruction could pay for itself through increased oil revenues. Mitch Daniels, the Office of Management and Budget director, and Secretary Rumsfeld estimated the costs in the range of $50 to $60 billion, a portion of which they believed would be financed by other countries. (Adjusting for inflation, in 2007 dollars, they were projecting costs of between $57 and $69 billion.) The tone of the entire administration was cavalier, as if the sums involved were minimal.”

27 Charles R. Morris, The Trillion Dollar Meltdown: Easy Money, High Rollers, and the Great Credit Crash ( New York : PublicAffairs, 2008).

28 Joint Vision 2020, http://www.dtic.mil/jointvision/jvpub2.htm; Scott, The Road to 9/11, 20, 24. “Full spectrum dominance” repeated what had been outlined earlier in a predecessor document, Joint Vision 2010 of 2005, but with new emphasis on the statement that “the United States must maintain its overseas presence forces” (Joint Vision 2020, 6). Cf. Joint Vision 2010, 4, www.dtic.mil/jv2010/jvpub.htm: “We will remain largely a force that is based in the continental United States .”
29 Project for the New American Century, Rebuilding America’s Defenses, http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf; Scott, The Road to 9/11, 23-24, 191-93.
30 Rebuilding America’s Defenses, 51, 75.
31 “War in Iraq ,” BarackObama.com, http://www.barackobama.com/issues/iraq/ .
32 See e.g. Andrew Bacevich, Newsweek, December 8, 2008, http://www.newsweek.com/id/171254: “In Afghanistan today, the United States and its allies are using the wrong means to pursue the wrong mission. Sending more troops to the region, as incoming president Barack Obama and others have suggested we should, will only turn Operation Enduring Freedom into Operation Enduring Obligation. Afghanistan will be a sinkhole, consuming resources neither the U.S. military nor the U.S. government can afford to waste.” Cf. PBS, Frontline, “The War Briefing,” October 28, 2008, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/warbriefing/view/.

33 For the role of the Rhodes-promoted Jameson Raid in instigating the Boer War, see Elizabeth Longford, Jameson’s Raid: The Prelude to the Boer War (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1982).
34 Gordon M. Goldstein, Lessons in Disaster: McGeorge Bundy and the Path to War in Vietnam ( New York : Times Books/Henry Holt, 2008).
35 John Newman, JFK and Vietnam : Deception, Intrigue, and the Struggle for Power (New York: Warner Books, 1992), 375-77, 434-35, 447; Peter Dale Scott, The War Conspiracy: JFK, 9/11, and the Deep Politics of War ( Ipswich , MA : Mary Ferrell Foundation Press, 2008), 25-26, 28.
36 Ofira Seliktar, Failing the Crystal Ball Test: The Carter Administration and the Fundamentalist Revolution in Iran ( Westport , CN: Praeger, 2000), 52.
37 Brzezinski later boasted that his “secret operation was an excellent idea. It drew the Russians
into the Afghan trap” (“Les Révélations d’un ancien conseiller de Carter,” interview with
Zbigniew Brzezinski, Le Nouvel Observateur, January 15–21, 1998, http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/BRZ110A.html; French version:
http://www.confidentiel.net/breve.php3?id_breve=1862; quoted at length in Peter Dale Scott, Drugs, Oil, and War: The United States in Afghanistan , Colombia , and Indochina ( Lanham , MD : Rowman & Littlefield, 2003), 35). For my negative assessment of what some have described as the CIA’s most successful covert operation, see The Road to 9/11, 114-37.

38 George Santayana, Life of Reason, Reason in Common Sense (New York: Scribner's, 1905), 284.
39 Edward Wolff, “The Wealth Divide: The Growing Gap in the United States Between the Rich and the Rest,” Multinational Monitor, May 2003, http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/America/Wealth_Divide.html. Cf. Edward Wolff, Top Heavy: The Increasing Inequality of Wealth in America and What Can Be Done About It ( New York : New Press, 2002).

40 Kevin Phillips, Wealth and Democracy: A Political History of the American Rich ( New York : Broadway Books, 2002), 422; quoted in Scott, The Road to 9/11, 3.
41 Wolff, “The Wealth Divide.”
42 For McKinley’s mercantilist “large policy” as a response to depression, see Philip Sheldon Foner, The Spanish-Cuban-American War and the Birth of American Imperialism, 1895-1902 (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1972).
43 Barnett R. Rubin and Ahmed Rashid, “From Great Game to Grand Bargain: Ending Chaos in Afghanistan and Pakistan ,” Foreign Affairs, November/December 2008, http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20081001faessay87603-p40/barnett-r-rubin-ahmed-rashid/from-great-game-to-grand-bargain.html.

44 Ahmed Rashid, “Obama's huge South Asia headache,” BBC, January 2, 2009, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7788321.stm,
45 Cf. Zia Sarhadi, “ America 's "good war" turns into quicksand,” MediaMonitors, January 5, 2009, http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/58114: “Obama’s announcement to send 20,000 additional troops to the `good war’ in Afghanistan has been greeted by the Taliban with glee. They regard it as an opportunity to attack a `bigger army, bigger target and more shiny new weapons to take from the toy soldiers.’ American generals have talked in terms of 40,000 to 100,000 additional troops, levels that are simply not available. America ’s killing of hundreds of Afghan civilians in indiscriminate aerial attacks has been the most effective recruiting tool for the Taliban. Even those Afghans not keen on seeing the Taliban back in power are appalled by the level of brutality inflicted on civilians.” Peter Dale Scott, a former Canadian diplomat and English Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, is a poet, writer, and researcher. His most recent book is The War Conspiracy: JFK, 9/11, and the Deep Politics of War, It can be ordered from the Mary Ferrell Foundation Press at http://www.maryferrell.org/wiki/index.php/MFF_Store. Scott’s website is http://www.peterdalescott.net.
URL of this article: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11681

* You know, I have talked about all of this too many times and I still get laughed at for it. I sent you Executive order 51 before. Absolutely 100% everything has been done with total control of the people to follow this mess and it is all part of the lie we are living including the anthrax attacks so Bush could get all this abusive power. This is just beginning and has all been done on purpose as I constantly say, there are no surprises here including the timing!

* To illustrate this is coming too close for comfort I have to tell you, I went to use the video on the terror Executive order 51 will bring to America and it was pulled off you tube. I have used it many times the last couple of years and it being pulled right now is not a good sign!

Leon Panetta and the CIA By Jerome Grossman and my response, we finally agree!

Leon Panetta and the CIA By Jerome Grossman and my response, we finally agree!
President-elect Obama stunned the national intelligence community by selecting Leon Panetta to serve as the next director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Panetta has been a US Representative, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, and Chief of Staff in the Clinton administration.

While Panetta is a longtime Washington insider with serious management experience, he is not an expert on intelligence or on past operations of the CIA. Obama has been criticized by CIA specialists and high ranking senators for appointing a director without direct experience in the field.

But that is exactly why Panetta was appointed. Obama has criticized the agency for using harsh interrogation methods and has openly objected to the use of such methods, some of which have been used for generations under Democratic as well as Republican administrations. Obama had to find a director who was absolutely clean on waterboarding, other tortures, secret renditions of prisoners to other countries for torture, kidnappings, assassinations, etc.. The only safe appointment was a manager who had never been in the CIA, who did not have the experience of breaking US law and violating the Geneva Conventions on Treatment of Prisoners of War. The Clinton administration made extensive use of rendering suspects to Egypt without formal charges to be tortured. Was Panetta involved? Will the question be asked at his confirmation hearing?

Democratic senators Dianne Feinstein of California and Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia immediately complained about the appointment citing lack of experience and Obama's failure to notify them in advance. However, their position is weakened by their failure to use their influence as powerful members of the Senate Intelligence Committee to expose the hideous practices and to arouse the nation of the crimes committed in the name of the United States.

It will not be easy for Panetta to reform the CIA and to change established patterns of conduct. Who becomes second in command of operations will supply a clue about the chance of success in changing the culture of the agency. The action levels are often hidden from the view of the Director at the helm. Obama is trying, and so will Panetta. The illegal procedures must be eliminated. They offend other nations, tarnish US reputation, and produce incorrect information. Modern intelligence techniques avoid torture and violence, rely on psychological approaches and obtain more accurate information faster without alienating the rest of humanity.

I think Panetta was a good choice!
President-elect Barack Obama has selected Leon E. Panetta, the former congressman and White House chief of staff, to take over the Central Intelligence Agency, an organization that Mr. Obama criticized during the campaign for using interrogation methods he decried as torture, Democratic officials said Monday.

Mr. Panetta has a reputation in Washington as a competent manager with strong background in budget issues, but has little hands-on intelligence experience. If confirmed by the Senate, he will take control of the agency most directly responsible for hunting senior Al Qaeda leaders around the globe, but one that has been buffeted since the Sept. 11 attacks by leadership changes and morale problems. Panetta is an odd choice

Considering Obama ran as the agent of change this is a bit disconcerting to me! Considering Barack's criticism of Panetta's stance on torture I find this to be just one more sign of the war cabinet Obama has amassed!

Obama has been criticized for using insiders from the past but we have to remember who the new decider is. He will do the right thing. Obama has been forced to pick the war cabinet he has as they will have many wars to deal with I am afraid. All of which has been set in motion by Bush! I want to criticize the choice of Leo Panetta like I would like to criticize many of his cabinet choices!

However, with the bed Bush has made for us and Obama I think Penetta is a wise choice!

James Joiner
Gardner, Ma
http://anaverageamericanpatriot.blogspot.com

2.6 million jobs lost in 2008 with fears of one million per month! Remember what it took us to get out of the Great Depression, WW2...

All the way back in Decenber we had the Biggest one-month job loss in U.S. since 1974 with 533,000 lost!
This month we find we lost 524,000 in December making this the worst year for employment since 1945 with Total 2008 job loss: 2.6 million

Now we hear there are Fears of a million layoffs a month in corporate America Business ...
* I told you Obama's dire warnings yesterday was a long ago foregone conclusion and The Second Great Depression set up by Greenspan was a given regardless of all these bailouts. at this rate the 10% unemployment Obama warned about is going to happen in about 6 months regardless!

They will do nothing but stave off the inevitable and speed up the bankrupting of America also set in motion by Bush. I have written it numerous times but I just want you to remember the great Depression and a couple parallel facts with this one!

** Remember it was the Republicans at the helm the last time this happened and while FDR's New Deal did a lot to bring us back and Obama wants to replicate it and it is necessary that it took WW2 to get us out of it!

**** It is important to remember as I have written about this too, too many times but Bush has laid the foundation not only for the bankrupting of America but WW3 to get us out of it or so they think!

James Joiner
Gardner, Ma
www.anaveragepatriot.com

Yesterday we discussed our purposely caused Financial woes and the 2nd great Depression today Obama warns of long recession and too late to stop!

First I want to say the Right is banking on it so they can get back in and finish off us and their mis agenda!

Yesterday we discussed our purposely caused Financial woes as Budget deficit to reach $1.2 trillion
That is really Sick! At $9 trillion it was calculated that every single American automatically has $20,000 debt hanging over them largely thanks to the scum Bush and his purposeful bankrupting of America. He has been like a little kid in a candy shop.

That $1.2 trillion can be added to the already $10 trillion! I did a story a while back about the National Debt clock that was started because of President Reagan and his "success" Bush has had so much Reagan style success the debt clock had to be reset adding another number!

Now he is adding another $1.2 trillion and that does not include the $1 trillion Obama now wants to add to repair Bush's damage, I am afraid that is a necessary evil!

I have heard $12 trillion bandied about and as I said that does not include Obama' proposal of up to $1 trillion. I am really sick of hearing Obama's proposal which will put Americans back to work and rebuild our infrastructure purposely allowed to fail under the Bush as war is his only concern.

I am firmly convinced that all these bailouts and tax breaks are worthless and as I have said numerous times only putting off the inevitable 2nd Great Depression until Bush gets out of office.

* On that note I want to remind you that the chief scum put off paying his debt until he leaves office so he would not have it on his books. Hmph! Look how bad it is anyway! look what he has done to the future of America, the future of our children, our Grandchildren.

** If they survive the wars present and future the war monger set in motion they will be choked by his Debt! That will be his Legacy!

Now Obama warned it may soon be too late to save economy

It has been too late for years! This financial collapse was engineered for Bush by Greenspan. I ask again that you read Michael Whitney The second great Depression

* The entire collapse those behind Bush set up is just beginning and nothing will stop it now! Not our Financial collapse! Not the middle east Breakdown! Not WW3! Not the Forever War! There is no surprise here including the timing of this perfect manufactured storm. Hold on world! I wish someone would have listened to my 8 years of warnings!

James Joiner
Gardner, Ma
http://anaverageamericanpatriot.blogspot.com

In regard to what is happening to the US I was asked about a statement made by Goering about going to war! Below is the sobering truth!

Sad but true statement about talking the people into war: I have heard this before here you go! : “Naturally the common people don’t want war. But after all, it is the
leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it’s always a simple matter to drag people along whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship.

Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding ofm the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and for exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country.”

--- Hermann Goering, Hitler’s Reich Marshall, at the Nuremberg Trials after World War II.
Answer! Although this quote was indeed spoken by Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering during the course of the Nuremburg Trials, it was not part of the trial records, since these remarks were made privately by Goering in a conversation with prison psychologist and U.S. Army Captain Gustave M. Gilbert that took place in Goering's jail cell.

"The quote cited above does not appear in transcripts of the Nuremberg trials because although Goering spoke these words during the course of the proceedings, he did not offer them at his trial. His comments were made privately to Gustave Gilbert, a German-speaking intelligence officer and psychologist who was granted free access by the Allies to all the prisoners held in the Nuremberg jail. Gilbert kept a journal of his observations of the proceedings and his conversations with the prisoners, which he later published in the book Nuremberg Diary.

The quote offered above was part of a conversation Gilbert held with a dejected Hermann Goering in his cell on the evening of 18 April 1946, as the trials were halted for a three-day Easter recess." Snopes.com http://www.snopes.com/quotes/goering.htm

Here is the complete quote, with a comment by Gilbert that occurred midway through it: "Nazi leader Hermann Goering, interviewed by Gustave Gilbert during the Easter recess of the Nuremberg trials, 1946 April 18, quoted in Gilbert's book 'Nuremberg Diary.' Goering: Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece.

Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Gilbert: There is one difference.

In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars. Goering: Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country." NashuaPeace.org http://naw.ijaq.net/conversation_with_Goering.htm

Gaza is a full blown humanitarian crisis but Israel in Southern Gaza will not stop until Iran comes out in the open!

NoteBook Gaza!




Gaza clashes spark 'major crisis'

Israel Pushes into Southern Gaza

Israel Applying Lessons From Lebanon to Gaza Fighting

I was awake again this morning early so I got up at 4:00 AM and turned on the news to hear the latest about Gaza! They were talking about the full blown humanitarian crisis and that Gaza City was surrounded even as "Hamas" was still firing rockets from the rubble there! They will not stop! This will not stop! It is just beginning like it or not!

Anyway leaflets were being dropped on Gaza City and other areas instructing civilians to E-Mail them and turn in those firing the rockets! Save yourself! The situation is getting dire as relief can not get in and the wounded can not get out! Neither Hamas or Israel really cares! Like Bush they merely feign concern as getting their way is all that matters.

Hamas will kill anyone who E-Mails Israel or rats them out! Those people are screwed, caught in the middle of this quest to wipe each other out! What would you do in this situation? Can anything save these people? I think not as this is just beginning!

When will the Muslim world say enough is enough? When will Iran their perceived champion step forward from the shadows? Bringing Iran and Syria out from the shadows and getting this Israel Buffer and new middle east order war going full tilt was the goal since Iraq was attacked to get us back into the middle east.

Bushco has for years now been looking for an excuse to attack Iran as he did in Iraq! Once they get Iran openly involved though Bush instigated this too they will merely say see we told you they were behind the problem.

I am so sick of the total lie we are living since Bush! Bush instigated this whole thing but remember, along with the manufactured financial collapse of America and the world this perfect storm happening right now at the end of Bush and the beginning of Obama's term is no coincidence.

Hopes are that along with everything else Bush has caused this too will be dropped on Obama, credited to him, and the right will get back in to finish off us and their mis-agenda for new societal, middle east, and world order!

James Joiner
Gardner, Ma
http://anaverageamericanpatriot.blogspot.com

Bailing Out of 2008, How weird a year was it? Heres how weird!

Bailing Out of 2008

You can bet that in a year when an Ohio plumber became more famous than the Dalai Lama, a hockey mom from Alaska came within a heartbeat of the White House, gas hit $4 a gallon, and rich automakers begged Congress for $25 billion, Dave Barry might have a few words to say.
By Dave Barry January 4, 2009

How weird a year was it?
Here's how weird:
O.J. actually got convicted of something.
Gasoline hit $4 a gallon -- and those were the good times.
On several occasions, Saturday Night Live was funny.
There were a few days there in October when you could not completely rule out the possibility that the next Treasury secretary would be Joe the Plumber.
Finally, and most weirdly, for the first time in history, the voters elected a president who -- despite the skeptics who said such a thing would never happen in the United States -- was neither a Bush nor a Clinton.

Of course, not all the events of 2008 were weird. Some were depressing. The only US workers who had a good year were campaign consultants and foreclosure lawyers. Everybody else got financially whacked. Millions of people started out the year with enough money in their 401(k)s to think about retiring on, and ended up with maybe enough for a medium Slurpee.
So we can be grateful that 2008 is almost over. But before we leave it behind, let's take a few minutes to look back and see if we can find some small nuggets of amusement. Why not? We paid for it, starting with . . .
JANUARY . . . which begins, as it does every four years, with presidential contenders swarming into Iowa and expressing sincerely feigned interest in corn. The Iowa caucuses produce two surprises:
On the Republican side, the winner is Mike Huckabee, folksy former governor of Arkansas or possibly Oklahoma, who vows to remain in the race until he gets a commentator gig with Fox. His win deals a severe blow to Mitt Romney and his bid to become the first president of the android persuasion. Not competing in Iowa are Rudy Giuliani, whose strategy is to stay out of the race until he is mathematically eliminated, and John McCain, who entered the caucus date incorrectly into his 1996 Palm Pilot.

On the Democratic side, the surprise winner is Barack Obama, who is running for president on a long and impressive record of running for president. A mesmerizing speaker, Obama electrifies voters with his exciting new ideas for change, although people have trouble remembering exactly what these ideas are, because they were so darned mesmerized. Some people become so excited that they actually pass out. These are members of the press corps.
Obama's victory comes at the expense of Hillary Clinton, who fails to ignite voter passion despite a ripsnorter of a stump speech in which she recites, without notes, all 17 points of her plan to streamline tuition-loan applications.

The worsening economy takes center stage in . . .FEBRUARY
. . . when, amid much fanfare, Congress passes, and President Bush signs, an "economic stimulus package" under which the federal government will give taxpayers back several hundred dollars apiece of their own money, the idea being that they will use this money to revive the US economy by buying TV sets that were made in China. This will seem much more comical in the fall.
The battle between Obama and Clinton heats up as the two engage in a series of increasingly hostile debates, including one in which Secret Service agents have to tackle a large, angry, red-faced man who bursts from the audience shouting incoherently. This turns out to be Bill Clinton, who is swiftly dispatched by his wife's campaign to work his magic on voters in the crucial Guam caucuses.
On the Republican side, McCain emerges as the front-runner when Mitt Romney drops out of the race, citing "motherboard issues."

Speaking of losers, in . . . MARCH
. . . New York's Eliot Spitzer becomes embroiled in an embarrassing scandal when a criminal investigation reveals that the governor looks like a large suit-wearing rodent. Also he has been seeing a high-class prostitute known as "Kristen" in a Washington, D.C., hotel. Spitzer resigns in disgrace; "Kristen," hounded by the press and no longer able to pursue her profession, receives a $23 billion bailout from the federal government.
In football, beloved Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre retires and embarks on a series of emotional farewell events, several of which are still going on when he signs to play for the Jets.

Speaking of emotional, in . . . APRIL
. . . the price of gasoline tops $4 a gallon, meaning the cost of filling up an average car is now $50, or, for Hummer owners, $17,500. Congress, responding to the financial pain of the American people, goes into partisan gridlock faster than ever before, with Republicans demanding that the oil companies immediately start drilling everywhere, including cemeteries, and Democrats calling for a massive effort to develop alternative energy sources, such as wind, sun, tides, comets, Al Gore, and dragon breath, using technology expected to be perfected sometime this millennium. It soon becomes clear that Congress will not actually do anything, so Americans start buying less gasoline.

Speaking of buying things, in . . . MAY
. . . Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac invest $17 billion in an Herbalife franchise.
In presidential politics, the increasingly bitter fight for the Democratic nomination intensifies when Obama and Clinton hold a televised debate, moderated by PBS anchor Jim Lehrer, that consists entirely of spitting.

On the Republican side, McCain, preparing for the fall campaign, purchases a new necktie.
The big spring Hollywood hit is the film version of Sex and the City, which draws millions of moviegoers, including an estimated three men, two of whom thought they were in the theater for the fourth Indiana Jones movie, Indiana Jones Experiences Frequent Nighttime Urination.
In sports, both the Kentucky Derby and the Indianapolis 500 are won by Usain Bolt.

Speaking of victory, in . . .
JUNE
. . . Obama finally claims the bitterly contested Democratic nomination when Clinton, behind on delegates and in debt to the tune of $25 million, including $9 million for hairspray alone, suspends her campaign and declares that she has "no hard feelings" and will do "whatever it takes" to help Obama get elected, "even though he is scum." Bill Clinton, at his wife's side, nods vigorously, but is unable to speak because of the restraining device. A gracious McCain tells the press that he "looks forward to a spirited debate with Senator Mondale." Before he can take questions, he is informed by his aides that he has an important meeting.

In economic news, Chrysler announces a plan to lay off workers who have not been born yet. The lone economic bright spot is the iPhone, which is selling like crazy thanks to the release of a new model enhanced with the capability of sucking pieces of your brain out through your ear until all you want to do is play with your iPhone.

Tiger Woods, in an epic performance, wins the US Open playing on an injured and very painful knee, thereby proving, beyond all doubt, that golf is not a real sport.

Speaking of epic performances, in . . . JULY
. . . Obama, having secured North and South America, flies to Germany without using an airplane and gives a major speech -- speaking English and German simultaneously -- to 200,000 mesmerized Germans, who immediately elect him chancellor, prompting France to surrender.
Meanwhile McCain, at a strategy session at a golf resort, tells his top aides to prepare a list of potential running mates, stressing that he wants somebody "who is completely, brutally honest." Unfortunately, because of noise from a lawn mower, the aides think McCain said he wants somebody "who has competed in a beauty contest." This will lead to trouble down the road.
In sports, the government of China, in an effort to improve air quality for the Beijing Olympics, bans flatulence.

Speaking of Olympians, in . . . AUGUST
. . . Obama, continuing to shake up the establishment, selects as his running mate Joe Biden, a tireless fighter for change since he was first elected to the US Senate in 1849. Meanwhile McCain, still searching for the perfect running mate, tells his top aides in a conference call that he wants "someone who is capable of filling my shoes." Unfortunately, he is speaking into the wrong end of his cellphone, and his aides think he said "someone who is capable of killing a moose." Shortly thereafter McCain stuns the world, and possibly himself, by selecting Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska, a no-nonsense hockey mom with roughly 114 children named after random nouns such as "Hamper."

Elsewhere abroad, fighting breaks out between Russia and Georgia over South Ossetia and Abkhazia, serving as a stark reminder that, in an increasingly uncertain world, we, as Americans, have no idea where these places are.
Speaking of uncertainty, in . . .

SEPTEMBER
. . . the mood improves at the Republican convention when Palin dazzles the delegates with her winning smile, detailed knowledge of what is on the teleprompter, and spot-on imitation of Tina Fey. The next night, McCain, formally accepting the nomination, pledges to run "a totally incoherent campaign." None of this is reported in the media because the entire press corps is in Wasilla, Alaska, investigating rumors that Palin once dated a yeti.

But the presidential campaign is soon overshadowed by the troubled economy. The federal government is finally forced to take over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac after they are caught selling crack at a middle school. But that is not enough, as major financial institutions, having lost hundreds of billions of dollars thanks to years of engaging in practices ranging from questionable to moronic, begin failing, which gives the federal government an idea: Why not give these institutions MORE hundreds of billions of dollars, generously provided by taxpayers?
And so it comes to pass that in . . .

OCTOBER
. . . Congress passes, and Technically Still President Bush signs, the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, and everyone heaves a sigh of relief as the economy stabilizes for approximately 2.7 seconds, after which it resumes going down the toilet. As world financial markets collapse like fraternity pledges at a keg party and banks fail around the world, the International Monetary Fund implements an emergency program under which anybody who opens a checking account anywhere on earth gets a free developing nation.

The economy dominates the presidential campaign, with the focal point being "Joe the Plumber," an Ohio resident who asks Obama a mildly confrontational question about tax policy and within hours is more famous than the Dalai Lama. He draws intense scrutiny from the news media, which, using investigative reporters borrowed from the Palin-yeti beat, determine that "Joe the Plumber" is in fact (1) not named Joe, (2) not a plumber, (3) a citizen of Belgium, and, (4) biologically, a woman.
In the presidential debates, McCain, looking and sounding increasingly like the late Walter Brennan, cites Joe the Plumber a record 847 times while charging that Obama's tax policies amount to socialism.

In noneconomic news, a Las Vegas jury convicts O.J. Simpson on 12 counts of being an unbelievable idiot. He faces more than 60 years in jail, which could end his relentless quest to find the killer of the people he stabbed to death in 1994.
In sports, the entire nation rejoices as the World Series is won, yet again, by a team other than the New York Yankees.

Speaking of winning, in . . . NOVEMBER
. . . Obama, in a historic triumph, becomes the nation's first black president since the second season of 24, setting off an ecstatically joyful and boisterous all-night celebration that at times threatens to spill out of The New York Times newsroom. Obama, following through on his promise to bring change to Washington, quickly begins assembling an administration consisting of a diverse group of renegade outsiders, ranging all the way from lawyers who attended Ivy League schools and then worked in the Clinton administration to lawyers who attended entirely different Ivy League schools and then worked in the Clinton administration. But the hopeful mood is dampened by grim economic news. The stock market plummets farther as investors realize that the only thing that had been keeping the economy afloat was the millions of dollars spent daily on TV commercials for presidential candidates explaining how they would fix the economy.
More and more companies seek federal help, among them the troubled "big three"automakers, whose chief executives fly to Washington in three separate corporate jets to ask Congress for $25 billion, explaining that if they don't get the money, they will be unable to continue making cars that Americans are not buying.

Speaking of grim things, in . . . DECEMBER
. . . the National Bureau of Declaring Things That Make You Go "Duh" declares that the nation has been in a recession since December 2007. The bureau also points out that, according to its statistical analysis, "for some time now, bears apparently have been going to the bathroom in the woods."

President-elect Obama, continuing to bring change in the form of fresh-faced Washington outsiders, announces that his secretary of state will be Hillary Clinton. The position of secretary of defense, currently held by Bush appointee Robert Gates, will be filled by Bush appointee Robert Gates.

In other political news, federal authorities arrest Democratic Illinois governor Rod "Rod" Blagojevich after wiretaps reveal that he was . . . OK, that he was being the governor of Illinois. Everybody is very, very shocked.

But the economy remains the dominant issue, with retailers reporting weak holiday sales as many shoppers pass up pricier gifts such as jewelry and big-screen TVs in favor of toilet paper and jerky. As the year draws to a close, the president's Council of Economic Advisers warns that the current recession "could spiral downward into a full-blown depression," leaving the United States with "no viable economic option but to declare war on Japan."

In another troubling note, US intelligence sources report that Iran is developing "a gigantic rocket-powered shoe."

The point is, if you have any money left, you should spend it soon.

James Joiner
Gardner, Ma
http://anaverageamericanpatriot.blogspot.com