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OUTRAGE

Page history last edited by PBworks 16 years ago

A SHOCKING STORY
>From a reader:
I've read a lot of articles from Greg Palast, he's good, a true investigative reporter, very careful, does his research.  Here is his take on the connection between the Spitzer fall and the banking industry.  It explains why it happened when it did and why these are not unconnected events.  I don't have the publication source for this article it was sent to me from a person with the Democrats of Oro Valley but Palast usually writes for some of the better papers in England such as the Guardian or The Independent.

http://www.gregpalast.com/

The $200 billion bail-out for predator banks and Spitzer charges are intimately linked

By Greg Palast

Reporting for Air America Radio’s Clout

While New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was paying an ‘escort’ $4,300 in a hotel room in Washington, just down the road, George Bush’s new Federal Reserve Board Chairman, Ben Bernanke, was secretly handing over $200 billion in a tryst with mortgage bank industry speculators.

Both acts were wanton, wicked and lewd. But there’s a BIG difference. The Governor was using his own checkbook. Bush’s man Bernanke was using
ours.


This week, Bernanke’s Fed, 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.

Up until Wednesday, there was one single, lonely politician who stood in the way of this
creepy little assignation at the bankers’ bordello:
Eliot Spitzer.

Who are they kidding? Spitzer’s lynching and the bankers’ enriching are intimately tied.

How? Follow the money.

The press has swallowed Wall Street’s line that millions of US families are about
to lose their homes because they bought homes they couldn’t afford or took loans too big for their wallets. Ba-LON-ey. That’s blaming the victim.


Here’s what happened. Since the Bush regime came to power, a new species of loan
became the norm, the ‘sub-prime’ mortgage and it’s variants including loans with
teeny “introductory” interest rates. From out of nowhere, a company called ‘Countrywide’ became America’s top mortgage lender, accounting for one in five home loans, a large chuck of these ‘sub-prime.’


Here’s how it worked: The Grinning Family, with US average household income, gets a
$200,000 mortgage at 4% for two years. Their $955 a month payment is 25% of their income. No problem. Their banker promises them a new mortgage, again at the cheap rate, in two years. But in two years, the promise ain’t worth a can of spam and the Grinnings are told to scram - because
their house is now worth less than the mortgage. Now, the mortgage hits 9% or $1,609 plus fees to recover the “discount” they had for two years. Suddenly, payments equal 42% to 50% of pre-tax income. Grinnings move into their Toyota.


Now, what kind of American is ‘sub-prime.’ Guess. No peeking. Here’s a hint: 73% of HIGH INCOME Black and Hispanic borrowers were given sub-prime loans versus 17% of
similar-income Whites. Dark-skinned borrowers aren’t stupid – they had no choice.
They were ‘steered’ as it’s called in the mortgage sharking business.


‘Steering,’ sub-prime loans with usurious kickers, fake inducements to over-borrow, called ‘fraudulent conveyance’ or ‘predatory lending’ under US law, were almost completely forbidden in the olden days (Clinton Administration and earlier) by
federal regulators and state laws as nothing more than fancy loan-sharking.


But when the Bush regime took over, Countrywide and its banking brethren were told to party hardy – it was OK now to steer’m, fake’m, charge’m and
take’m.


But there was this annoying party-pooper. The Attorney General of New York, Eliot
Spitzer, who sued these guys to a fare-thee-well. Or tried to.


Instead of regulating the banks that had run amok, Bush’s regulators went on the
warpath against Spitzer and states attempting to stop predatory practices. Making an unprecedented use of the legal power of “federal pre-emption,” Bush-bots ordered the states to NOT enforce their consumer protection laws.


Indeed, the feds actually filed a lawsuit to block Spitzer’s investigation of ugly racial mortgage steering. Bush’s banking buddies were especially steamed that Spitzer
hammered bank practices across the nation using New York State laws.


Spitzer not only took on Countrywide, he took on their predatory enablers in the
investment banking community. Behind Countrywide was the Mother Shark, its funder and now owner, Bank of America. Others joined the sharkfest: Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and Citigroup’s Citibank made mortgage usury their major profit centers. They did this through a bit of financial legerdemain called “securitization.”


What that means is that they took a bunch of junk mortgages, like the Grinnings, loans
about to go down the toilet and re-packaged them into “tranches” of bonds which were
stamped “AAA” - top grade - by bond rating agencies. These gold-painted turds were sold
as sparkling safe investments to US school district pension funds and town governments in Finland (really).


When the housing bubble burst and the paint flaked off, investors were left with the poop
and the bankers were left with bonuses. Countrywide’s top man, Angelo Mozilo, will
‘earn’ a $77 million buy-out bonus this year on top of the $656 million - over
half a billion dollars – he pulled in from 1998 through 2007.

But there were rumblings that the party would soon be over. Angry regulators, burned
investors and the weight of millions of homes about to be boarded up were causing the sharks to sink. Countrywide’s stock was down 50%, and Citigroup was off 38%, not pleasing to the Gulf sheiks who now control its biggest share blocks.


Then, on Wednesday of this week, the unthinkable happened. Carlyle Capital went
bankrupt. Who? That’s Carlyle as in Carlyle Group. James Baker, Senior Counsel. Notable
partners, former and past: George Bush, the Bin Laden family and more dictators, potentates, pirates and presidents than you can count.


The Fed had to act. Bernanke opened the vault and dumped $200 billion on the poor little suffering bankers. They got the public treasure – and got to keep the Grinning’s
house. There was no ‘quid’ of a foreclosure moratorium for the ‘pro quo’ of public bail-out. Not one family was saved – but not one banker was left behind.


Every mortgage sharking operation shot up in value. Mozilo’s Countrywide stock rose 17% in one day. The Citi sheiks saw their company’s stock rise $10 billion in an
afternoon.


And that very same day the bail-out was decided – what a coinkydink! – the man called, ‘The Sheriff of Wall Street’ was cuffed. Spitzer was silenced.

Do I believe the banks called Justice and said, “Take him down today!” Naw, that’s not how the system works. But the big players knew that unless Spitzer was taken out, he would create enough ruckus to spoil the party. Headlines in the financial press – one was “Wall Street Declares War on Spitzer” - made clear to Bush’s enforcers at Justice who their number one target should be. And it wasn’t Bin Laden.

It was the night of February 13 when Spitzer made the bone-headed choice to order
take-out in his Washington Hotel room. He had just finished signing these words for the
Washington Post about predatory loans:

“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 he federal government was turning a blind
eye.”


Bush, said Spitzer right in the headline, was the “Predator Lenders’ Partner in Crime.” The President, said Spitzer, was a fugitive from justice. And Spitzer was in Washington to launch a campaign to take on the Bush regime and the biggest financial powers on the planet.

Spitzer wrote, “When history tells the story of the subprime lending crisis and recounts its devastating effects on the lives of so many innocent homeowners the Bush dministration
will not be judged favorably.”


But now, the Administration can rest assured that this love story – of Bush and his bankers - will not be told by history at all – now that the Sheriff of Wall Street has fallen on his own gun.

A note on “Prosecutorial Indiscretion.”

Back in the day when I was an investigator of racketeers for government, the federal
prosecutor I was assisting was deciding whether to launch a case based on his negotiations for airtime with
60 Minutes. I’m not allowed to tell you the prosecutor’s name,
but I want to mention he was recently seen shouting, “Florida is Rudi country! Florida is Rudi country!”


Not all crimes lead to federal bust or even public exposure. It’s up to something called “prosecutorial discretion.”

Funny thing, this ‘discretion.’ For example, Senator David Vitter,Republican of Louisiana, paid Washington DC prostitutes to put him in diapers (ewww!), yet the Senator was not exposed by the US prosecutors busting the pimp-ring that pampered him.

Naming and shaming and ruining Spitzer – rarely done in these cases - was made at the
‘discretion’ of Bush’s Justice Department.


Or maybe we should say, 'indiscretion.'

Greg Palast, former investigator of financial fraud, is the author of the New York Times
bestsellers
Armed Madhouse and
The
Best Democracy Money Can Buy.

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CENSORING OF EMAIL BY  SERVERS  ????

http://www.WantToKnow.info/008/080222yahooblockalert

Dear WantToKnow.info Subscribers,

In what appears to be another disturbing case of Internet censorship, the major email server Yahoo.com has blocked the delivery of our February 20th newsletter, "Vital 9/11 Information Provides Solid Evidence of Major Cover-up." Two of our regular subscribers who use Yahoo independently notified us that the above email was "not allowed - UP Email not accepted for policy reasons." They have not had problems with other emails sent by us. This statement appears to indicate that the email was blocked because of its title and/or content. We suspect that Yahoo has adopted a policy against its customers receiving information about the 9/11 cover-up. We've heard from various sources that they are not allowing other sensitive political messages as well.

Last year AOL.com briefly blocked all of our newsletters to AOL subscribers. But because so many of you wrote to them demanding a change of policy, they eventually communicated with us and removed the block. We believe that a similar outpouring of pressure may reverse Yahoo's decision to censor important messages on 9/11. Please consider writing to Yahoo and complaining about the injustice of the block they have placed on our email. If you'd like to help with this, please leave a message for Yahoo using the information below.

Email a message to Yahoo at reportabuse@cc.yahoo-inc.com. http://feedback.help.yahoo.com/feedback.php?.src=FP&.done=http://www.yahoo.comhttp://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/mail/original/forms_index.html (for those with a Yahoo account only) Yahoo subscribers can also call 866-562-7219 and press 1, then 3, and then 3 again to get a live operator and register a complaint.

You might also invite your friends and colleagues to join in this worthy endeavor. For any who did not receive this powerful 9/11 message filled with reliable, verifiable information suggesting a cover-up, you can find it online at http://www.WantToKnow.info/911information. And for a five-minute video showing clear Yahoo censorship of 9/11 issues in the past, click here. Thanks for caring, and you have a good day.

With best wishes,
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HERE AT HOME  AN OUTRAGEOUS ACT. 

Be sure and read in yesterday's  (Sunday 2/24)  GV News about the vandalism and  intimidation of a family with three children who live in Amado.  Laura Carroll, (daughter of a former minister of Valley Presbyterian Church, an attorney, a nurse, and mother of three children, and her husband, Ben Jackson, are in my UU Congregation.  They donated land for a sculptor to construct his work of art called  a Bridge over Troubled Waters.   Last week destruction occurred on this work of art,  and many shots were fired.  Laura hustled her three and two visiting children inside.  They are in great fear.  I personally am outraged at this example of goon squad naziism committed right in our area.  What is happening to our country.?  When we demonstrate next on March 3,  we can all have signs saying that We Will NOT be Intimidated.  Make you own and join us.  Let us support this family who have not hurt even a flea, and have the right to speak - at least we thought so.  June Wortman

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 OUTRAGE !!!!!

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/01/08/dod-not-investigate-kbr/


Pentagon Inspector General Refuses To Probe KBR Rape Case

kbr.jpg Last month, after ABC News reported that former Halliburton/KBR employee Jamie Leigh Jones had been gang-raped by her co-workers while working in Baghdad, multiple lawmakers — including Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX), Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) — pressed the Bush administration to reveal the state of the case and to explain how an earlier investigation “had not resulted in any prosecution.”

The Bush administration has been anything but cooperative. Both the State and Justice departments refused to give Poe “answers on the status” of the investigation. The DoJ “refused to send a representative” to a Congressional hearing last month, and the State, Defense and Justice departments all missed Nelson’s deadline for answering questions.

Now, the Inspector General of the Department of Defense has written to Nelson and other lawmakers, saying that his agency will not investigate the allegations:

In letters to lawmakers, DoD Inspector General Claude Kicklighter said that because the Justice Department still considers the investigation into Jones’ case open, there is no need for him to look into the matter.

“[T]he U.S. Justice Department has issued a statement that they are investigating the allegations,” wrote Kicklighter’s office to Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., who had requested he look into the matter. “No further investigation by this agency into the allegations made by [Jones] is warranted.”

Though Kicklighter is refusing to investigate Jones’ allegations, he did say he would explore ‘whether and why’ a U.S. Army doctor handed to KBR security officials the results” of Jones’ “rape kit,” which then disappeared. Nelson’s office told ABC that the senator is “not satisfied” with Kicklighter’s letter.

Nelson is right to be disappointed, especially since Jones’ assault may not be “an isolated case.”

Former Halliburton/KBR employees have described an atmosphere of “rampant sexual harassment.” Poe has also confirmed that his office has heard from multiple other women who were victims of sexual assault while working for KBR in Iraq.

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Border Patrol Incident

7:30 am

November 27, 2007

I was forcibly pulled over by the Border Patrol on my way to work. I have traveled the Arivaca Road every day for the past 10 years, mostly without incident. I have been harassed a few times. Bright lights in the rear view mirror, tailgating etc. But up until now I haven’t ever had any real trouble. I’ve heard stories of people being hurt, held at gunpoint, forced from their vehicles. This list goes on. My sister was hit in the face, dragged from her vehicle, thrown to the ground and handcuffed with her face in the dirt. I can’t say that in light of these things I feel very safe when it comes to the Border Patrol

I have always been told, in every self-defense class, even those taught by law enforcement, that you should go to a populated area before you pull over for anyone you don’t know including law enforcement. Slow down, pull over to the right side of the road as far as possible without leaving the pavement and continue to drive slowly until you reach a populated area.

Border patrol turned on their flashing lights behind me at about the 20 mile marker after following me for about 4 miles. I did what I was taught. I slowed down to 20 miles per hour, pulled to the side of the road and continued to drive. They followed me for a little ways and then the first Border Patrol pulled in front of me and cut me off. I hit the brakes and the second Border Patrol sandwiched me in. Both jumped out of their vehicles and pulled their guns. They screamed at me several times to get out of my vehicle. I told them no and they continued screaming at me. “Roll down the window. Get out the vehicle. Why do you hate authority?” etc. I tried to explain that I was moving slowly toward a populated area. I told them that stories of abuse abound. Just a mile down the road was the Cow Palace. There would be people there.

He told me “No, you’ve already proven that you’re going to run.

They finally allowed me to pull to the side of the road so that we weren’t obstructing traffic. Five more BP showed up. I didn’t leave my vehicle. They called the Pima County Sheriff.

The sheriff came. He asked for my ID and I gave it to him. I told him they had pulled their guns on me. He told me that I could be charged with a felony for not stopping immediately. I explained to him that my sister had been abuse by them and that I just wanted to get to a safe place before I pulled over. He then told me that I had only to pull over and show them my ID. Other than that I’m not required to do anything further.

We waited until they ran a check on me. He handed me back my ID and told me I could go. They never told my why I was pulled over.

For the record I am a 49 year old grandmother. I have blond hair and blue eyes. I drive a small truck and I work at a book store.

 

 

From June Wortman: I know this woman who works in the Book Shop in Green Valley

The above will be published December 1 in THE CONNECTION, an excellent,  free,  monthly paper published in Amado and available at the Green Valley Library and other sites.

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LEGAL AND CIVIL RIGHTS 101

 

The following was in NPR's Morning edition  on Thursday, Nov. 27 and it is found on the NPR.org website

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16727309

 

 

David McNew

Hispanic activists protest against immigration raids across the country at a rally in Los Angeles in December. Getty

Morning Edition, November 29, 2007 · In the past two years, the immigration agency has dramatically stepped up arrests of illegal immigrants in workplaces and in their homes.

In response, immigrant rights advocates have been holding "know your rights" seminars that coach people on how to avoid arrest.

Gloria Contreras-Edin of Centro Legal has held nearly two dozen of these seminars since an immigration raid in a Minnesota prairie town last spring.

She says she wants people to be prepared if immigration agents come to their homes.

Legal Affairs 101

"They're going to knock very loudly," she says, banging on a chair. "An ugly knock. But don't open the door. The only way immigration can force their way into your home is with a search warrant."

One man can't believe this. He asks if the authorities can enter with a deportation order?

"No," Contreras-Edin says. "They still need your permission."

She tells the group the immigration agency has a tip line and warns them not to talk about their immigration status at work if they are undocumented.

And if agents do show up, they need probable cause to arrest you, she says. So, don't give them any!

Contreras-Edin leans into the face of a woman in the front row and asks, "Where are you from?"

The woman is silent, and Contreras-Edin says that is the right response.

She warns immigration agents will even try to get information from children. She looks at two boys in the front row and clasps her hands over her mouth. They giggle, and then they do the same.

A number of people in this group are legal residents or citizens, but they are worried about unauthorized relatives.

Contreras-Edin sees her role as helping these families avoid separation. She says even legal residents often don't know they don't have to answer a federal agent's questions.

"They have the right to remain silent. They don't have to prove that they're citizens. I couldn't prove that I'm a citizen, and most people can't," she says.

Odds of Arrest Are Slim

Critics contend these sessions are aiding a crime by helping illegal immigrants stay in the country.

In Washington, D.C., Immigration and Customs Enforcement does not make that charge, but officials do see an impact.

John Torres, who heads the office of Detention and Removal, says his agents are finding more people who refuse to open their doors to agents.

"What that means for us is it makes our job a little bit harder. We have to expend more time, effort and taxpayer money to get the job done," Torres says. "But what we'll do is, in some instances, we may wait until the person comes out. Or, we may do more significant surveillance and arrest them at a location outside their residence."

At the Saint Paul, Minn., meeting, a woman who gave her name as Selenia says she is a legal resident, but her husband and two children are not.

She is so worried about the increase in arrests that she kept the children inside on Halloween this year, and she says many people now go out only for essential errands.

As the meeting winds down, Contreras-Edin hands out a packet of forms. In case of arrest, families can delegate the care of a child and sign over their power of attorney for financial matters.

Some Latino advocates note that, despite ramped up enforcement, the odds of being arrested still remain slim.

Contreras-Edin says 200,000 immigrants were deported from the interior of the country last year.

Related NPR Stories

 

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RESURRECTING THE STAR CHAMBER

by Scott Horton

Harpers Magazine   

http://harpers.org/archive/2007/11/hbc-90001726

November 23, 2007

 

When the Founding Fathers looked for a model that reflected the abuses they objected to—in short what they intended to forbid by their new Constitution and Bill of Rights—they turned to an English institution, the Court of Star Chamber. It was a state security court with ancient roots which flourished under the Tudor and Stuart monarchs. The Star Chamber court operated in secrecy, was not bothered by the picky evidentiary rules that emerged in other courts, and did not believe that those appearing before it on state security charges had many rights—certainly not the right to counsel, nor even the right to conduct a defense. It relied very heavily on torture to extract the evidence it sought to convict, usually a confession—though rarely, of course, a confession with any validity, since the application of the rack would quickly get the subject to say whatever was desired, truthful or not.

Although scholars have been complimentary of the Star Chamber for its work on commercial matters, when politics was at issue, we see that it acted with little independence from the monarch. It was a tool for lashing the political opposition. And freethinkers were its particular victims. The mistreatment dealt to religious dissenters in particular, men like “Freeborn” John Lilburne and John Pym, caused the public to turn strongly against the Star Chamber and to demand its abolition. In the end, the Court of Star Chamber stood as an image for the tyrannical excesses of King Charles. And the American colonists, being overwhelmingly Roundheads, were among the loudest voices raised in opposition.

 

The Bush Administration is slowly introducing the Court of Star Chamber to the process of American justice. We see its elements everywhere. In the farcical Combat Status Review Tribunals created in Guantánamo, row repeatedly denounced even by judges serving on them as a travesty. In the Military Commissions, crafted in conscious avoidance of the standards both of American military and civilian justice. And in the steady press to lower the standards of our federal courts to introduce practices that continually tip the scales of justice in favor of prosecutors. Reports have begun to circulate that the Administration has put together a group of scholars headed by an right-wing activist judge to craft legislation to introduce a new court of Star Chamber, perhaps to be floated in the coming year. As we see in the public pronouncements of the Bush Administration, accusations leveled at detainees in the war on terror are leveled for political effect, and often to parallel partisan political campaigns. If those accusations are rejected by a court, it therefore undermines confidence in the Administration and the Party. Which is why, in the Bush view of justice, a failure to convict is unacceptable. And which is why the Bush view of justice is no justice at all.

Two stories in the press this morning give more evidence to the Bush Administration’s on-going assault on the courts and the concept of justice. Each is worthy of study and observation because of what it portends for the future of our languishing justice process.

Al-Timimi

In the Eastern District of Virginia (the Bush Administration’s favorite district court, in its favorite circuit), federal prosecutors secured a conviction and life-sentence against an Islamic scholar in 2005. His attorneys have attacked the conviction, claiming that he was the target of illegal surveillance. The Bush Administration has intelligence authorities making classified submissions directly to the judge in the case, without allowing either the defense or the prosecutors access to them. The New York Times reports:

A federal judge warned Tuesday that if the government did not allow lawyers to review classified material on possible wiretapping of an Islamic scholar convicted of inciting terrorism, she might order a new trial for him. The unexpected development is the latest legal complication involving the National Security Agency’s wiretapping program, which has produced challenges from criminal defendants as well as civil lawsuits against the government and phone carriers.

Lawyers for Ali al-Timimi, an Islamic scholar in Northern Virginia sentenced to life in prison in 2005 for inciting his followers to commit acts of terrorism, maintain that he may have been illegally wiretapped by the agency as part of its program of eavesdropping without warrants that was approved by President Bush soon after the Sept. 11 attacks. In April 2006, four months after the N.S.A. program was publicly disclosed, an appellate court directed the trial judge in Mr. Timimi’s case to reconsider it in light of his lawyers’ accusations.

 

But the issue has been bogged down in court for 18 months, with intelligence officials making a series of classified appearances before the judge, Leonie M. Brinkema, to explain the government’s position. Lawyers for Mr. Timimi and even the trial prosecutors have not been allowed to hear the closed-door discussions. Jonathan Turley, the lead appellate lawyer for Mr. Timimi, said the defense’s lack of access to crucial evidence had made it hard to litigate the case. “We’re shadowboxing in the courtroom with unnamed officials at unnamed agencies,” Mr. Turley said in a telephone interview.

Like defendants before the Star Chamber, the defense is being denied the right of confrontation, the most basic of defense rights. This means that they do not know what is being said against them, nor even who is saying it. And accordingly, they are not able to point out to the Court what is false or suspect in these statements, or to introduce information which would rebut them. And all of this is transpiring in an American court room today, in one of many courts in America in which the Constitution has become a dormant document–at the urging of the Bush Justice Department.

Omar Khadr

Five news organizations, The AP, The New York Times Co., Dow Jones & Company Inc., The Hearst Corp. and The McClatchy Company have filed a complaint stating that they are being denied access to critical information that would allow them to report on the Guantánamo Military Commissions proceeding against Canadian Omar Khadr.

Various arguments in the case of Omar Khadr at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are apparently made via e-mail — a communications channel to which the public has no access — and issues apparently are being raised in closed sessions for which no transcripts or summaries are available, the news organizations, including The Associated Press, wrote in a filing.

In addition, the filing stated, the public is not permitted access to motions and other documents submitted by the parties and “even the existence of a motion is not currently disclosed in any publicly accessible way.”

Khadr is now 21 years of age and has been in prison for five years, since he was 16. He is accused of having committed crimes as a minor. Radkhika Coomaraswamy, the UN Special Representative for Children in Armed Conflict, has registered strong complaints about the treatment of Khadr, as have other nations and human rights groups. “She raised her concerns about the creation of an international precedent where an individual is being tried for war crimes with regard to alleged acts committed when he was a child,” said a UN spokesman. There is a view in the international law community that the act of trying a minor as a war criminal is itself a war crime. Not that this would, of course, give the Bush Administration the slightest pause.

Specific charges against Khadr include having lobbed a grenade that killed an American medic in Afghanistan.

The US strategy of closely guarding the proceedings and restricting media access to arguments and materials submitted is, however, highly selective. The Department of Defense leaked to CBS News’s “Sixty Minutes” program what prosecutors have long viewed as their “bombshell” evidence: film which they assert shows Khadr involved in insurgent activities in Afghanistan. The Government strategy is that the Government will exercise tight control over what the public learns about the trial and what transpires there. That, of course, was the very abuse against which “Freeborn” John Lilburne railed in his assault on the injustice of the Stuart courts, and the right to an open court is often cited in legal history books as having been established by him, in the middle of the seventeenth century. Which is why the Bush Administration is so much more as home with sixteenth century concept of judicial conduct.

 

But the major issue that critics raise here is not Khadr’s guilt or innocence, but the procedural fairness and transparency of the process by which he is being tried.

As thing stand now, whatever results from the trial of Omar Khadr, no serious observers are going to consider them to be fair. So what purpose is served by them? The answer to that question is fairly obvious: domestic political propaganda. This is a political trial, not an exercise in justice.

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Privatized Hell Revisited

by Ernest Partridge | Nov 21 2007 - 9:34am |  

 

article tools: email | print | read more Ernest Partridge

There are some principles and practices in our political order that are settled, once and for all. They are simply beyond rational dispute. No one is arguing for a hereditary monarch, with a “divine right” to rule over us. No one seriously supports the reinstatement of chattel slavery. No one believes that homosexuals, Sabbath workers and disobedient children should be stoned to death. (Well, almost no one – there are, after all, a few “Christian Dominionists” still at large).

And almost no one has questioned the wisdom of Benjamin Franklin’s establishment in Philadelphia in 1736, of the first municipal fire department in colonial America.

Not until now.

Before fire-fighting became the business of local and state governments, fire-fighters were employed by insurance companies. Plaques placed on the front of homes and businesses identified the companies that underwrote the properties. If a fire alarm was answered by a cadre of fire-fighters from the “wrong” company, that was just tough luck. “Burn, baby, burn!” Many structures were lost while competing companies tried to sort out which was authorized to put out the fire.

Many more adjoining structures were consumed by fires that were oblivious to property lines.

Fires, as it happens, are not reducible to individual incidents affecting particular structures. They are public threats to communities at large. Accordingly, the task of fighting fires is appropriately assigned to municipal agencies, managed and financed by the community, which means, of course by the government. (See my “Privatization and Public Goods”).

Two hundred and seventy-one years of uncontested validation of this simple truth does not faze the libertarians and the regressives (self-described “conservatives”). Some of them are now proposing a giant step backward to privatized fire fighting. As Naomi Klein reports in The Nation:

Just look at what is happening in Southern California. Even as wildfires devoured whole swaths of the region, some homes in the heart of the inferno were left intact, as if saved by a higher power. But it wasn't the hand of God; in several cases it was the handiwork of Firebreak Spray Systems. Firebreak is a special service offered to customers of insurance giant American International Group (AIG)--but only if they happen to live in the wealthiest ZIP codes in the country. Members of the company's Private Client Group pay an average of $19,000 to have their homes sprayed with fire retardant. During the wildfires, the "mobile units"--racing around in red firetrucks--even extinguished fires for their clients.

One customer described a scene of modern-day Revelation. "Just picture it. Here you are in that raging wildfire. Smoke everywhere. Flames everywhere. Plumes of smoke coming up over the hills," he told the Los Angeles Times. "Here's a couple guys showing up in what looks like a firetruck who are experts trained in fighting wildfire and they're there specifically to protect your home."

And your home alone. "There were a few instances," one of the private firefighters told Bloomberg News, "where we were spraying and the neighbor's house went up like a candle." With public fire departments cut to the bone, gone are the days of Rapid Response, when everyone was entitled to equal protection.

Privatized fire fighting? It was a lousy idea in Ben Franklin’s time, and it is lousy idea today.

This is why:

Privatized fire fighting is inefficient. Several separate and uncoordinated fire crews struggling to save separate individual homes are far less efficient than a large, integrated and strategically organized “army” of fire-fighters. Add up the costs of manpower, equipment and losses to the fires, and the latter, coordinated, effort will always win, hands down. This will be so, even if every structure in the area is “protected” by one or another private company of “responders.” Imagine, for example, a street in which a line of houses is insured and protected, sequentially from left to right, by the fire crews of Acme, Inc., Gecko, Inc., Good Hands, Inc., Acme, Inc., Gecko, Inc., Good Hands, Inc. – then add a few more companies, in random order, as you continue down the street. See what I mean? It’s far less expensive and more efficient if one agency is protecting the neighborhood as a unit. But more significantly, this example demonstrates that:

Privatized fire fighting is ineffective. The approach described above – several independent companies protecting individual homes, randomly situated – is comparable to opposing an invading army with individual local police and sheriff departments. An invading army attacking with an integrated force and battle plan can only be defeated by an opposing army with a superior integrated force and battle plan. Supply lines, effective use of available equipment, deployment of personnel, geographical contingencies, must all be taken into account by the opposing generals as they plan attacks, defenses and counter-attacks. Indefensible lands must be yielded and their populations abandoned so that forces might regroup on defensible terrain. Command decisions must be communicated intact through the company commanders to the individual soldiers. Decisive advantage is enjoyed by the side with the accurate “Big Picture” of the entire battle, a “picture” that changes as the battle evolves.

Similarly, the massive wildfires that ravaged southern California in October and November, 2003, and again last month, had to be responded to strategically – with a consideration of available resources, of terrain, and of priorities. “The Big Picture.” Thus a dozen homes, located beyond a defensible fire line (a road or a stream), might have to be sacrificed so that several hundred might be saved. Structures close to water sources and to open roads have higher priority than other structures that are isolated and offer poor means of escape for the fire fighters. The wealth or the insurance arrangements of the respective owners are irrelevant to the strategic planning of the fire fighters.

Community pre-planning and preparation are also essential to disaster management. For example, last month, in the “Grass Valley” fire near my home, the mansions of the "have mores" at Lake Arrowhead were protected by the removal of a million dead and diseased trees by order of the “big government” U.S. Forest Service, and by the local government requirement that flammable brush be removed from the modest homes of the “proletariat.” Cooperative community action combined with a large-scale coordinated response by professional fire-fighters saved the day, as the fire was contained to 1200 acres and the loss of about two hundred out of ten thousand homes.. (See “The California Wildfires and Right Wing Smoke”).

In contrast, a private fire crew, “contracted” to save this particular house at 1234 My Castle Circle (not 1232 and not 1236), has no “big picture” in mind. The total concern of the crew is this house, and this house only.

Clearly, it’s a helluva way to fight a fire.

Privatized fire fighting is immoral. The determined regressive might reply that the neighborhood could avoid the “this house but not that house” problem by agreeing to hire a single private fire fighting company. (However, there would remain the “this neighborhood but not that neighborhood” problem. But let that pass). All members of the neighborhood would then be required to pay a fee to the company – “required,” because those who might otherwise not pay would nonetheless be at least partially protected by the fee-payers, i.e., they would be “free riders.” Hence a "coercion" (and implied "theft of property") detested by Ayn Rand and the libertarians.

But this scheme puts the “regressive” neighborhood perilously close to installing a public fire department. What’s in a name? Call the neighborhood a “town,” the fee “taxes,” and the fire company a “fire department,” and what is the practical difference?

There is this difference: because of the high fees (due to the inefficiency problem, above) the neighborhood described here would have to be comprised of very wealthy home owners. And having paid exorbitant fees for individual fire protection, they would not be inclined to pay taxes to support city, county and state fire fighting agencies. In fact, San Diego County was ill-prepared for the fires of last month, due to successful tax-cutting proposals by anti-tax, anti-government conservative Republicans.

Accordingly, a privatization of fire protection, along with other emergency management services, increases and solidifies the stratification of society into the “have-nots” and “the have-mores.” “I have mine – you’re on your own.” The community then encompasses the neighborhood, but no more. Beyond the neighborhood is another country. Gone is the civic friendship that binds a nation together – the “equal justice under law,” the shared covenant enshrined in the founding documents of the republic, the sense that the national economy is a cooperative venture comprised of indispensable components: workers, investors, managers, and government.

Instead, we have George Bush’s “ownership society,” wherein today the wealthiest one percent of the population owns more than the bottom ninety percent, and that “ownership” of the oligarchs is increasing. (See “Facts on the Concentration of Wealth”). Included in that one-percent of the country effectively “owned” by the “have-mores” are privatized fire and other emergency services, the media, the courts, private armies, the paperless touch-screen machines that count our votes and the secret software that compiles election returns, and, finally, via lobbyists and campaign contributions, the Congress of the United States.

This concentration of wealth and this privatization of essential public services and government functions are both symptoms and causes of a failing democracy and a disintegrating nation.

Our history, our laws, and our shared sense of justice all warn us of this.

It remains to be seen whether we the people of the United States, the “proletariat” 90%, have the collective power and resolution to reverse this slippery slide toward despotism.

Copyright 2007 by Ernest Partridge

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About author Dr. Ernest Partridge is a consultant, writer and lecturer in the field of Environmental Ethics and Public Policy. He has taught Philosophy at the University of California, and in Utah, Colorado and Wisconsin. He publishes the website, "The Online Gadfly" (www.igc.org/gadfly) and co-edits the progressive website, "The Crisis Papers" (www.crisispapers.org). His book in progress, "Conscience of a Progressive," can be seen at www.igc.org/gadfly/progressive/^toc.htm. Send comme

 

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