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And The Nobel War Is Peace Prize Goes To...President Barack Obama...

2009-10-09T18:53:00.000-07:00

" Political language...is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. " - George Orwell

It took 25 years longer than George Orwell thought for the slogans of 1984 to become reality.

“War is Peace.”

“Freedom is Slavery.”

“Ignorance is Strength.”

I would add, “Lie is Truth.”

The Nobel Committee has awarded the 2009 Peace Prize to President Obama, the person who started a new war in Pakistan, upped the war in Afghanistan, and continues to threaten Iran with attack unless Iran does what the US government demands and relinquishes its rights as a signatory to the non-proliferation treaty. The Nobel committee chairman, Thorbjoern Jagland said, “Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future. Obama, the committee gushed, has created “a new climate in international politics.”

Tell that to the 2 million displaced Pakistanis and the unknown numbers of dead ones that Obama has racked up in his few months in office. Tell that to the Afghans where civilian deaths continue to mount as Obama’s “war of necessity” drones on indeterminably. No Bush policy has changed. Iraq is still occupied. The Guantanamo torture prison is still functioning. Rendition and assassinations are still occurring. Spying on Americans without warrants is still the order of the day. Civil liberties are continuing to be violated in the name of Oceania’s “war on terror.”

Apparently, the Nobel committee is suffering from the delusion that, being a minority, Obama is going to put a stop to Western hegemony over darker-skinned peoples. The non-cynical can say that the Nobel committee is seizing on Obama’s rhetoric to lock him into the pursuit of peace instead of war. We can all hope that it works. But the more likely result is that the award has made “War is Peace” the reality.

Obama has done nothing to hold the criminal Bush regime to account, and the Obama administration has bribed and threatened the Palestinian Authority to go along with the US/Israeli plan to deep-six the UN’s Goldstone Report on Israeli war crimes committed during Israel’s inhuman military attack on the defenseless civilian population in the Gaza Ghetto.

The US Ministry of Truth is delivering the Obama administration’s propaganda that Iran only notified the IAEA of its “secret” new nuclear facility because Iran discovered that US intelligence had discovered the “secret” facility. This propaganda is designed to undercut the fact of Iran’s compliance with the Safeguards Agreement and to continue the momentum for a military attack on Iran.

The Nobel committee has placed all its hopes on a bit of skin color.

“War is Peace” is now the position of the formerly antiwar organization, Code Pink. Code Pink has decided that women’s rights are worth a war in Afghanistan. When justifications for war become almost endless--oil, hegemony, women’s rights, democracy, revenge for 9/11, denying bases to al Qaeda and protecting against terrorists--war becomes the path to peace.

The Nobel committee has bestowed the prestige of its Peace Prize on Newspeak and Doublethink.

-Paul Craig Roberts ( "Warmonger Wins Peace Prize," CounterPunch, 10.11.2009. Image: "1984" Book Cover, Date Unknown ).

History Repeating: In Goldman Sachs We Cannot Trust...

2009-11-03T22:40:00.000-08:00

GOLDMAN SACHS BUSINESS PRINCIPLES ( # 5 of 10)

"We stress creativity and imagination in everything we do. While recognizing that the old way may still be the best way, we constantly strive to find a better solution to a client's problems. We pride ourselves on having pioneered many of the practices and techniques that have become standard in the industry." http://www2.goldmansachs.com/

HISTORY:

Goldman-Sachs is a financial institution that survived the Great Depression. John Kenneth Galbraith in his popular book, The Great Crash 1929 has a chapter dedicated exclusively to them entitled: In Goldman-Sachs We Trust.

Here we see a pattern emerging dating back nearly a century:

1928:

"Goldman, Sachs, and Company (GS&C) created a new venture called "Goldman, Sachs, Trading Company" (GSTC) and originally issued 1M shares at $100/share on Dec 4, 1928 but GS&C bought it all and then sold 90% of it to the public for $104 [apparently thinking this was a way to make a quick buck -- they had not yet learned about the concept of "leverage" as it is used/abused today]. Only 2 months later (Feb 21, 1929) GSTC merged with a company called Financial & Industrial Securities Corp. -- the resulting assets were $235M. Just before the merger, Feb 2 the stock was $136.50 and 5 days later on Feb 7 it was $222.50"

Massive value increase even though tangible real value was much less. Incredible spikes seem to follow the firm. Maybe they have the Midas touch?

“This remarkable premium was not the undiluted result of public enthusiasm for the financial genius of Goldman, Sachs. Goldman, Sachs had considerable enthusiasm for itself, and the Trading Corporation was buying heavily of its own securities. By March 14 it had bought 560,724 shares of its own stock for a total outlay of $57,021,936. This, in turn, had boomed their value. However, perhaps foreseeing the exiguous character of an investment company which had it investments all in its own common stock, the Trading Corporation stopped buying itself in March. Then it resold part of the stock to William Crapo Durant, who re-resold it to the public as opportunity allowed.”

1929:

Seven months later, after the October crash (including a 2:1 stock split), the price of the stock ultimately fell to approximately 1 3/4. The Goldman-Sachs Trading Corporation (GSTC) was an investment trust, a forerunner of the modern mutual fund. According to Galbraith, Goldman-Sachs' stock lost 97% of its going-public value., less than a year after its public offering.

1932:

But in a time with no SEC, virtually anything went on Wall Street during the Great Depression. Of course, we all know how the story ends. Years later in Washington Mr. Sachs had this to say to Senator Couzens at the Committee of United States Senate Hearing:

Senator Couzens: Did Goldman, Sachs and Company organize the Goldman Sachs Trading Company?

Mr. Sachs: Yes, sir.

Senator: And it sold its stock to the public?

Mr. Sachs: A portion of it. The firm invested originally in 10 percent of the issue.

Senator: And the other 90 percent was sold to the public?

Mr. Sachs: Yes, sir.

Senator: At what price?

Mr. Sachs: At 104...the stock was later split two for one.

Senator: And what is the price of the stock now?

Mr. Sachs: Approximately 1 3/4.

Deja-Vu perhaps?

2008:

Goldman Sachs seems to have a pattern of passing the proverbial buck after they have rinsed all profits from their venture and moved out of the way before the train derails.

(Excerpt:"In Goldman Sachs We Trust: The Story of a $222 Stock going to $1 During the Great Depression," mybudget360.com,8.2009. Image: Profiteer Illustration, Library of Congress, 1929).

Obama: The Audacity Of Hopelessness...

2009-12-03T17:45:00.000-08:00

With Obama's massive troop escalation (can the Nobel Peace Prize be rescinded?) he's made Afghanistan his war, reminiscent of President Johnson's Vietnam War escalation. At the current death rate of 500 soldiers per year the events depicted in the film will soon become a shattering reality for many more Americans. And next year Obama will spend some $65 billion on Afghanistan, more than for the Iraq war.

Afghanistan, the "Graveyard of Empires," is this administration's most egregious failing and is now fated to define Obama's legacy. Beyond Afghanistian, maintaining permanent military bases and large garrisons in Iraq, allowing Israel to evade a just two state peace with the Palestinians, clandestine Blackwater (now Xe services) assassins roaming around Pakistan, the killing of hundreds of Pakistani civilians by CIA Predator drone attacks authorized by Obama early in his tenure, and a continuing U.S. military build-up in Colombia under the guise of a phony "war on drugs," also are on the list.

A one-year litany of domestic disappointments could be captured by a bumper sticker reading "the audacity of hopelessness." After handing over almost $3 trillion to bankers, we have a jobless "economic recovery," an official 10.2 percent unemployment rate which is actually 16.5 percent, the number of home foreclosures continues to rise and a country in which one in four children only manage to keep hunger pangs at bay because of food stamps and soup kitchens.

In the face of this situation Obama's first stimulus package was pitifully small, and while it did "save" some jobs, it wasn't nearly enough for serious job creation. Obama's professed support for helping workers to unionize evaporated shortly after his inauguration. And under Obama's watch, as noted by New York Times columnist Bob Herbert, "Even as tens of millions of working Americans are struggling to hang onto their jobs and keep a roof over their families' heads, the wise guys of Wall Street are licking their fat-cat chops over yet another round of obscene multibillion dollar bonuses -- this time thanks to the bailout billions that were sent their way by Uncle Sam..."(10/20/09).

The nine largest banks are distributing $32.6 billion in bonuses. But given the jobs crisis and depression-like situation confronting tens of millions of our fellow citizens, Obama found a record-breaking $664 billion for the Pentagon for fiscal 2010. Finally, Obama and many Democrats quickly abandoned government single payer national health insurance -- the only plausible solution to our healthcare crisis -- caving to the despicable, predatory, for-profit private health insurance lobbyists. (Note: These lobbyists gave $1.8 million to 18 key members of Congress).

For those who worked and voted for Obama, especially younger folks, all of this must be a bitter pill to swallow, a giant step backward toward disillusionment and cynicism. I prefer to interpret it as a necessary and valuable lesson in electoral illusions for those truly serious about making this a better country:

Obama, a brilliant and charismatic politician, was always a conservative corporate Democrat, a self-described believer in "the free market," and an enthusiastic accommodator to the rich and powerful. In the words of one pundit, Obama is Clinton without the sleaze. He would never have been given a favorable vetting by the financial elites who chose our presidential candidates if he represented the slightest threat to their domestic interests and global empire. By the way, the latter includes 800 military bases in 130 countries.

According to astute political analyst Paul Street, the Obama campaign set new corporate fundraising efforts, including nearly $1 million from Goldman Sachs. In short, aside from some crafty rhetoric Obama was never a social justice populist and viewing him that way always contained a massive dose of wishful thinking. In that narrow sense, Obama has been entirely consistent and didn't really betray anyone.

More and more Americans are wise to the fact that because Democrats and Republicans are virtually indistinguishable on the issues that matter most, the "change we can believe it" will not be forthcoming from these two business parties.

Short term we need a mobilized and vocal movement from below that dramatically increases the political costs for those resisting needed reforms. Longer term, we need systemic change, change in the class structure of capitalism. Until and unless workers who produce all the goods and services in our society participate in making the major economic policy decisions -- to run the economy democratically -- we will only be tinkering with a system that primarily serves those who own it. We need a new broad-based political party that actually responds to the genuine grievances and aspirations of ordinary working people and youth.

-Gary Olson ( “Obama’s First Nine Months: Change We Can Believe In?,” CommonDreams.Org, 12.3.2009. Image: "Obama Fraud," Image Products, 2009 ).