"When profit is obtained in a just measure, it is naturally legitimate and necessary for economic development. However capitalism should not be regarded as the only valid model for economic progress."
Pope Benedict
"When I say 'capitalism', I mean a full, pure uncontrolled, unregulated laissez-faire capitalism--with a separation of state and economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of state and church."
Ayn Rand "The Objectivist Ethics" The Virtue of Selfishness "Those seeking profits, were they given total freedom, would not be the ones to trust to keep government pure and our rights secure. Indeed, it has always been those seeking wealth who were the source of corruption in government. No other depositories of power have ever yet been found, which did not end in converting to their own profit the earnings of those committed to their charge."
If you're a follower of local blog ontheborderline.nut for comic relief, like I am, you may have been surprised to see a another rambling cut and paste from the obscure Austrian Economist and Mentor to the OTBL radical Laissez Fair Capitalists/pseudo-entrepreneurs. But then again you probably expected it. In their latest mind numbing bag of wind article OTBL's Flash, aka Dr.Bill chastises the evils of Christian Socialism.
"The protagonists of Christian social reform as a rule do not regard their ideal Society of Christian Socialism as in any way socialistic. But this is simply self-deception. Christian Socialism appears to be conservative because it desires to maintain the existing order of property, or more properly it appears reactionary because it wishes to restore and then maintain an order of property that prevailed in the past. It is also true that it combats with great energy the plans of socialists of other persuasions for a radical abolition of private property, and in contradistinction to them asserts that not Socialism but social reform is its aim. " and on and on......
Many commentators have highlighted the Pope extensive travels throughout the world and his use of advanced telecommunications to spread his message. Less noted is the fact John Paul's vision of globalization sharply countered the pro-corporate triumphalism spread by "free trade" boosters.
Reflecting on the process of globalization during his 1998 visit to Cuba, the Pope contended that world is "witnessing the resurgence of a certain capitalist neoliberalism which subordinates the human person to blind market forces." He claimed that "[f]rom its centers of power, such neoliberalism often places unbearable burdens upon less favored countries." And he remarked with concern that "at times, unsustainable economic programs are imposed on nations as a condition for further assistance."
Coming at a moment when protests against the type of "structural adjustment" mandated by the U.S.-dominated World Bank and International Monetary Fund were beginning to make headlines, the targets of John Paul's condemnation were not mysterious. Because of such economic policies, the Pope argued, we "see a small number of countries growing exceedingly rich at the cost of the increasing impoverishment of a great number of other countries; as a result the wealthy grow ever wealthier, while the poor grow ever poorer."
John Paul elaborated his arguments in his 1999 exhortation, Ecclesia in America. There he asserted that the increasing global integration of the current era presents an opportunity for progress. "However," he warned, "if globalization is ruled merely by the laws of the market applied to suit the powerful, the consequences cannot but be negative." He spoke out against "unfair competition which puts the poor nations in a situation of ever increasing inferiority."
The Pope's sentiments reflected the church's wider understanding of political economy. In a 2001 address to the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, John Paul reiterated the faith's teaching that "[e]thics demands that systems be attuned to the needs of man, and not that man be sacrificed for the sake of the system." Furthering this idea, the Pope insisted on "the inalienable value of the human person" who "must always be an end and not a means, a subject, not an object, not a commodity of trade." Further Reading on a just economy:
"In 1993, John Paul II would provoke mocking headlines when he criticized Poland and other post-Communist countries for accepting pure market economics from the West and thus abandoning the "grain of truth" in Marxism. Although many thought the pope was reversing himself, he was in fact using almost the same words he had used forty years before in class lectures and in his book, and had been using ever since.
Wojtyla separated Marx's analysis of economic exploitation, which he largely accepted, from Marx's solutions, which he rejected. "The Catholic social ethic," he wrote in 1953, "agrees that in many cases a struggle is the way to accomplish the common good. Today...a class struggle...is the undeniable responsibility of the proletariat." Not only is classconscious revolution compatible with Christianity, he argued; it is sometimes necessary to Christianity. What is incompatible is Marxism's subjugation of the individual human spirit to a grand economic design after the revolution.
In Catholic Social Ethics, Wojtyla set down rules for social struggle that are strikingly similar to those that would be enunciated less than a decade later by the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., in the United States. Wojtyla and King each believed the struggle should be aimed at persuasion, not at violent, Marxist-style upheaval. Wojtyla wrote:
Demonstrations, protests, strikes, and passive resistance - all these are means of class struggle that need to be considered appropriate. The struggle for rights, after exhausting all peaceful means...is a necessary act of justice that leads only to the achievement of the common good, which is the goal of social existence....
It is clear that from the view of the ethical assumptions of the Bible, such a struggle is a necessary evil, just like any other human struggle.... It is also evident from the Bible that struggle itself is not the opposite of love. The opposite of love is hate.
A struggle in a specific case does not have to be caused by hate. If it is caused by social and material injustice, and if its goal is to reinstate the just distribution of goods, then such a struggle is not [hatred].... Social justice is the necessary condition for realization of love in life...."
"... I, personally, have written hundreds of anonymous articles and I would challenge Dennis, or anyone, to point out purposeful mistatements of fact, unwarranted "vitriol," obscenities or purposeful ad hominem."
"Comment #10379 by BobZiller on 10/23/2007 @ 3:22 pm
"Now I can add another attribute to anonymous bloggers - lying."
Wisconsin AG accused of being too liberal Van Hollen says he places law above beliefs ...gee what a terrible concept to embrace!
J.B. Van Hollen says he's a true-blue Republican. But his bridges with the GOP faithful could be smoldering. Almost 10 months into his term as the state's attorney general, Van Hollen has taken a number of stances that run counter to traditional Republican philosophy.
He bagged an investigation into Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle's fundraising. He issued legal opinions that say Wisconsin's ban on partial-birth abortion is probably toothless and the University of Wisconsin System can legally consider race in admissions. Just last month, the Justice Department canceled plans for a prayer at a state Capitol service for murder victims after the Freedom From Religion Foundation objected. Van Hollen insists he's conducting business as promised, placing the law before his personal beliefs.
"Some are getting it. Some just don't want to get it," Van Hollen said. "A lot of people aren't accustomed to having somebody who's willing to put the law above their personal opinions."
It could be costing him support. Conservative talk show hosts in Milwaukee have questioned whether Van Hollen has "gone native" in liberal Madison.
"I think for a lot of conservatives, he's still on the bubble. He has a, perhaps, different approach and philosophy than some conservatives were expecting," WTMJ's Charlie Sykes commented after interviewing Van Hollen on his "Midday with Charlie Sykes" show in August.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A congressional committee investigating the performance of Blackwater USA questioned whether the private security firm may have evaded paying millions of dollars in taxes. By classifying workers in Iraq as "independent contractors" rather than employees, Blackwater appears to have engaged in an "illegal tax scheme" that avoided an estimated $31 million in employment-related taxes in the last year of its contract alone, said Rep. Henry Waxman on Monday.
Waxman, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, also accused the North Carolina-based company of preventing a guard who discovered the practice "from contacting members of Congress or law enforcement officials."
"It is deplorable that a company that depends on federal tax dollars for over 90 percent of its business would even contemplate forbidding an employee to report corporate wrongdoing to Congress and federal law enforcement officials," the California Democrat wrote in a letter to Blackwater founder and CEO Erik Prince.
US state department official Richard Griffin did not mention the issue in his resignation letter.
But he left just a day after the department moved to strengthen government oversight of the firms.
The changes were prompted by the deaths of Iraqi civilians in an incident involving the Blackwater company.
At present, foreign private security contractors have immunity from prosecution under Iraqi law but the Iraqi government is reportedly preparing a bill to make them accountable locally.
This week's state department report said there have been serious lapses in how the firms are supervised.
It is clear it was September's incident in particular, and the questions it raised in Iraq and the US, which led to Mr Griffin's sudden departure after 36 years in government service, our correspondent says.
After reading another flaccid expose by our loco blogging comrade Mr. Peanut at ontheborderline.nut, I decided to do some dark-of-night investigating to find out more about this communist in New Richmond. The communist from New Richmond continues to bemoan the fact that billionaires in our state are continuing to bribe simple-minded Republicans who get elected and in true puppet-like fashion vote YES to eliminate progressive income taxes, public education and reduce the size of the middle class to size where it can be drowned in the gilded hot tube of any of our state's billionaires. At first, I thought it was Bob Z, a frequent OTBL.nut commentator who occasionally sheds a ray of common sense and gets called a communist because of it. After finding the perimeter of Bob Z's yard guarded fortress-like with "Vote Yes for New Richmond School" signs and "Goldwater-Miller in '64" signs, I realized it was the other communist in New Richmond Mr. Peanut was referring to.
Not knowing exactly where the NR commie lived, I drove around and accidentally ran into Bolsheviks Boulevard. Not knowing which way to turn, I took a hard left and drove through the darkness. The street suddenly dead-ended into a street called Marxist Way. I knew I was getting warm so I took another hard left.
Under the cover of darkness, I slowed the beat-up Toyota my wife bought me and looked for a house that could pass for the local NR communist king pin. Suddenly I came upon a huge mansion bathed in red light. Sitting in front of the garage was the big gold Cadillac the New Richmond Communist drives to the NR government school board meetings. The vanity plates are a dead give away. I parked down the street, got out of my car and put on my undercover, secret investigator disguise -- a slime green sweat band on my follically-challenged head with a generous strip of duct tape across my lips. Those who know me will tell you that I have a hard time keeping my big mouth shut. The duct tape helps to keep the crap from trickling down on my Grover Norquist for President t-shirt. Disguise in place, I crept through the darkness across the lawn of the NR Commie's mansion. A like was glaring in a window by the corner of the house so I eased myself up to get a look at what was going on in the room. In the room at a desk sat the wife of the NR Commie. True to form she was fat and ugly, as all women are who work for the government school system. She was reading something that I couldn't quite make out, so I pulled out my Mr. Peanut telescope that I got from a can of dry roasted nuts when I was a small boy named Harito Alger.
I could hardly believe my beady eyes! She was reading something titled "The New Richmond School Guide To Cadillac Benefits!" As I looked around the room, I noticed overstuffed, gunny sacks with money leaking out of them. I strained to see the wording labeled on the sacks. Some sacks were labeled "money stolen from the taxpayers with the threat of confiscation of the personal property" and other sacks were labeled "money from the school district and teachers' union." Suddenly, Mrs. NR Commie got out of her chair, dumped the contents of one of the money bags on the floor, laid down and started rolling in it. It was too much for me to watch this. I stepped away from the window and went around the side of the house. Did I mention she had red hair?
Around the side of the house, I stopped to catch my breath. I was shaking violently and knew I wouldn't be able to write any threat letters later in the evening. It was then I notice a red glow coming from the back of the house. I slinked my way towards the light.
I creept up to the window and there in a big, red over stuffed chair sat the NR Commie himself. Like all husbands of public school teachers, he was fat, disheveled and obviously lazy and had worn out many a Lazy Boy chair paid for with money stolen from the taxpayers. He was watching the American League baseball championship on his HD Jumbotrone. In his hand was a bottle of Leine Red. On the table next to him was half a bottom of Johnny Walker Red. Next to the bottle was a well worn original copy of the Communist Manifesto. One of the Red Sox hit a grand slam and the NR Commie jumped to his feet cheering like he was in Red Square in 1917.
He had a fire going in his fire place and walked over it. Where you'd usually expect to see pieces of wood for the fire, there was a stack of books. He picked up a book and through it into the fire. With my telescope, I checked out the titles of the books. The titles included "Wealth of Nations" by Adam Smith, "The Road to Serfdom" by FA Hayek, "The Price of Sin," "Ayn Rand's Guide to Self Love," "The Free Marketeers Guide To Community Isolation," "Masters of Deceit" by J. Edgar Hoover and a host of other books I've heard about on the Ludwig von Mises website. On his wall was a pinup poster of Nancy Pelosi wearing a red bikini standing between Che Guevara and Fidel Castro, who was doing a Bill Clinton imitation with a cigar.
The NR Commie then went over to his CD player and started looking for a CD to play. With CDs by groups like Simply Red, Red Sovine, Red Knuckles and the Trailer Blazer and the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, it was clear to me why he was being labeled a communist. He put on a CD and cranked it up and it was "Panama Red" by the New Riders of the Purple Sage, a San Francisco band from the 1970s.
He then went back to the fire place and grabbed the copy of "The Price of Sin" and tossed it into the fire. Being that the wind was carrying the smoke from the fire place over by me, it was the smell of total bullshit that suddenly engulfed me as the "Price of Sin" sizzled like a fresh turd on the grill at last year's Badger Blog Alliance Bash. It was then I realized I had spent way too much time on this assignment and would be late of a late night Tea Party in Ellsworth.
I slinked back to my car, started it up and headed out of town. As I drove by the New Richmond school administration building, I noticed a dumpster along side the building and had thoughts of stopping by and digging through it for some incriminating evidence about the profits from the school pop fund. But by then it was too late and I knew I'd better get my ass home before the wife came home from winning the daily bread and started asking me how the Internet entrepreneuring was going.
I settled into the drive back to OTBL.nut headquarters and spent the drive listening to Glenn Beck on KTLK FM talk radio. As he reminded me how Mother Theresa, Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Rachel Carson, tree huggers, government employees, Jesus and everybody who didn't agree with me was a communist, the shaking started to dissipate. Suddenly a baby rabbit appeared in the other lane and I took out my AK-47, stuck it out the window and turned that bunny into a mist of bone and blood. I screamed "What would Jesus do?" in my best Ted Nugent voice and reached over and took handful of moldy peanuts from the Mr. Scrooge Christmas tin on the passenger seat.
From the darkside of the borderline: Chris Says: "I've always given you the benefit of doubt and understand that your position in New Richmond is first that of a husband and father. Your endorsement of the $93 Million dollar boondoggle was because of your son, who is employed in the the district and your wife, who wears pants in the family as well."
Audit: ‘Disarray’ on $1.2 billion Iraq contract U.S. can’t account for DynCorp performance in training police, report says You don't here ontheborderliners whining about this tax waste, do you?
By Aram Roston Investigative producer NBC News Updated: 5:49 p.m. CT Oct 23, 2007
Aram Roston Investigative producer Just as the State Department is trying to work its way clear of its Blackwater troubles, a scathing federal audit released Tuesday exposes a glaring lapse in oversight of another federal contractor in Iraq, DynCorp. DynCorp was supposed to train and equip Iraqi police, but the report says the State Department doesn’t know how most of the money in the billion-plus-dollar program was spent.
The State Department "does not know specifically what it received for most of the $1.2 billion in expenditures under its DynCorp contract for the Iraqi Police Training Program," the audit says. The federal watchdogs, with the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, or SIGIR, said that they even had to suspend their audit because there wasn't enough data to check the books, which were in “disarray.” Read More at MSNBC
Dynacorp not new to controversy: Alleged Human Rights Violations and Fraud
The company is not short on controversy. Under the Plan Colombia contract, the company has 88 aircraft and 307 employees - 139 of them American - flying missions to eradicate coca fields in Colombia. Soldier of Fortune magazine once ran a cover story on DynCorp, proclaiming it "Colombia's Coke-Bustin' Broncos."
US Rep. Janice Schakowsky, an Illinois Democrat, told Wired magazine that hiring a private company to fly what amounts to combat missions is asking for trouble. DynCorp's employees have a history of behaving like cowboys," Schakowsky noted.
"Is the US military privatizing its missions to avoid public controversy or to avoid embarrassment - to hide body bags from the media and shield the military from public opinion?" she asked.
Indeed a group of Ecuadoran peasants filed a class action against the company in September 2001. The suit alleges that herbicides spread by DynCorp in Colombia were drifting across the border, withering legitimate crops, causing human and livestock illness, and, in several cases, killing children. Assistant Secretary of State Rand Beers intervened in the case right away telling the judge the lawsuit posed "a grave risk to US national security and foreign policy objectives." One of the contractors chosen with DynCorp to provide litigation support to DOJ was CACI, the leading provider of Geographic Information Systems to the federal government. Richard Armitage, a high-ranking official at Defense during the Reagan Administration and at the State Department during the Bush II Administration, was a consultant and member of CACI’s board from 1999 to 2001.
After DynCorp personnel were later the subject of several lawsuits related to pedophilia and sex slave trafficking in partnership with local mafia in Eastern Europe,[17] Armitage as a senior official at the U.S. State Department would write a letter in support of large new sole source contracts to DynCorp based on the theory that a company should not lose contracts as a result of the conduct of a few employees.
In short, sex slave trafficking and pedophilia in its ranks did not prevent DynCorp from winning significant new contracts, including a $500 million sole-source contract to run police, enforcement, courts and prisons in Iraq.
ATBL, a not for profit blogging antagonist to the right wing fanactic lunacy of ontheborderline.nut is seeking a shadow administrator for an immediate opening. The successful candidate should have a working knowledge of the Right Wing politics of hate and destruction engaged in by ontheborderline.nut. Familiarity, with Ayn Rand's psuedo-philosophy and Ann Coulter hate speech a must. A plentiful repetoire of Ludwig Von Mises humor a definite plus. Duties will include satirical graphic design and composition of mocking and insightful written commentary exposing the destructive extremist propaganda agenda of ontheborderline.nut. Devotion to the teachings of party leader Chairman Mao required. WEAC membership optional. Candidates with sharp and intelligent wit and artistic vision are encouraged to apply. Classical Liberals and Objectivist resume's will be will be diposed of and recycled at New Richmond Communist Party Headquarters. Benefits include long hours of research for no pay and no recognition. If you meet these qualifications call 1-666-Socialist today. An Equal Opportunity Employer
Rocky Mountain News and Christianity Today Reports: Less than twelve months after students named Andrew Paquin faculty member of the year, the administration of Colorado Christian University dismissed the popular professor. Paquin believes his concerns about free enterprise led to the administration's May decision.
The school, which does not offer tenure, declined to discuss Paquin's dismissal, but Paquin said CCU president William Armstrong wrote him a letter several months before his release, warning that Armstrong found it "deeply troubling to hear you say that capitalism is inconsistent with the teachings of Jesus." Armstrong has said that supporting free markets is part of the school's mission.
A former U.S. senator, Armstrong joined the suburban Denver college in 2006. Shortly thereafter, he unveiled a new set of "strategic objectives," stating that the college promotes free markets, limited government, compassion for the poor, Western civilization, and the "original intent of [the] Constitution."
"Armstrong, a successful Colorado businessman, served in the Colorado Legislature, U.S. House of Representatives from 1972 to 1978 and in the United States Senate from 1978 to 1990. He was a member of the Senate Finance Committee, Senate Banking Committee, and Senate Budget Committee. For six years, he also served as Chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee. Photo: William L. Armstrong
Deciding not to seek reelection in 1990, Armstrong returned to Colorado. He is currently Chairman of Cherry Creek Mortgage Company—one of the state’s largest lending institutions—and of Greenwood Capital, also a mortgage banking firm, and Blueberry Systems, a software development company. In addition, Armstrong is Chairman of the Denver-based Oppenheimer Fund. Previously he has been a director of six public companies and the owner/operator of 13 private companies including radio and television stations, a daily newspaper, a real estate brokerage company, and title insurance and investment firms."
Paquin, hired the year before Armstrong, assigned books by Jim Wallis (author of God's Politics -Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It) and Peter Singer in his classes. "I wanted my right-wing students to see that the left wing has some validity," he said. But Paquin insisted he is no enemy of capitalism. His ministry, the 10/10 Project, funds microloans for Kenyans to start their own businesses.
Armstrong fired Paquin from a position teaching global studies at the end of the spring semester amid concerns that his lessons were too radical and undermined the school's commitment to the free enterprise system.
How ironic when Armstrong expresses his strong conviction toward a belief in the First Amendment on the Blog For Growth
"..I AM a fan of first amendment rights. I happen to think freedom of speech and publication, particularly on political topics, is absolutely fundamental to a free society. As a practical matter, groups like Colorado Club For Growth and others are about the only way a lot of people have to forcefully express their political opinions and preferences. With tight limits on contributions to candidates, independent expenditures (and groups) represent one of the very, very few opportunities for citizens to counter the overweening power of incumbents and the media. The right of citizens to express their point of view on any subject – particularly about candidates and political issues – is just basic. It’s civics 101. It’s The American Way."
I guess that's only for Americans that don't question Armstrong's views on economics and when "Free Speech" helps fill the coffers of Republican candidates. Buried somewhere deep in the Constitution's "original intent", college professors must have been excluded from having First Amendment Rights. Funny how Armstrong seem to be living up to his surname too.
"I think capitalism is an efficient and effective economic system," Paquin said, "but I won't deify it as an essential part of Christianity."
Paquin also stated, "Adam Smith, the 18th century Scottish philosopher associated with capitalism, wrote that the individual pursuit of wealth brings economic growth, improving everyone's lot, Paquin notes. But Jesus, he said, taught that the common good is served by pursuing the interest of others."
"My stance on capitalism is this... it is obviously a very efficient and pragmatic economic system that has produced the largest and wealthiest country the world has ever seen. It also can be exploitative, lead to human greed, and leave vast populations behind in its wake. It can turn citizens into consumers. Adam Smith writes that the common good is served by the individual pursuit of self-interest. Excuse me if I believe that the pursuit of my own self-interest might be in contrast to the life of Christ that exemplifies the pursuit of the interest of others. This is my tension. I have a house, two kids, two cars -- the American Dream. I also work in the slums of Africa, trying desperately to generate markets and enterprise so that people do not have to be mired in stupid poverty. If and when capitalism works - I'm all for it. But the tenets of my faith are bigger than the political economy of the West.
Let me say it this way. In Christ, you and I are set free, not for the individual pursuit of happiness, but set free for the collective pursuit of holiness. We are called by God not for ourselves, but for the glory of His Kingdom, and for the service of others. We, the fortunate ones of this great country have somehow forgotten that it is impossible to serve others while at the same time believing we are better than the others we are called to serve. Selfishness, greed, gluttony - these are epidemic in our culture. These might be the real threats to our way of life, but because they stare at us in the mirror, we are reluctant to say so. Instead, we write off the prophets among us as "liberal", "radical", or even "anti-American."
One of Paquin's students, Trevor Simmons, said CCU's strategic objectives "nearly incorporate a political agenda into the curriculum."
Pres. Armstrongs view is, "Like Colorado Christian, most evangelical colleges and universities expect professors to adhere to confessional tenets. Yet few adopt statements on political or economic systems."
"There is no connection between free markets and Christianity," Armstrong said. "But we teach other things that aren't rooted in Scripture, like that H2O is water."
Academic freedom at a Christian university, he said, is "freedom for Christian scholars to explore the great ideas of history in light of the mission of the university and with respect to its denomination."
What do other Colorado Christian University Students say?
A petition to have Paquin's contract renewed has been started and is available here:
See Full Transcript: JEREMY SCAHILL: "What I see in the bigger picture here is what the real revolution is in terms of U.S. politics is that they're taking billions of dollars in public money. And they're privatizing it.
You know, the Pentagon can't give campaign contributions. The State Department can't give campaign contributions. Blackwater's executives can give contributions. DynCore's, Ratheon, Northrop Grumman. And so what they're doing is, they're taking billions of dollars. And it's making its way back into the campaign coffers of the very politicians that make the meteoric ascent of these companies possible. I really view this through the lens of it tearing away at the fabric of American democracy as well."..............
JEREMY SCAHILL: What I see in the bigger picture here is what the real revolution is in terms of U.S. politics is that they're taking billions of dollars in public money. And they're privatizing it.
You know, the Pentagon can't give campaign contributions. The State Department can't give campaign contributions. Blackwater's executives can give contributions. DynCore's, Ratheon, Northrop Grumman. And so what they're doing is, they're taking billions of dollars. And it's making its way back into the campaign coffers of the very politicians that make the meteoric ascent of these companies possible. I really view this through the lens of it tearing away at the fabric of American democracy as well. ................. JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, right now in Iraq, there are 180,000 contractors operating alongside 170,000 US troops. So it's effectively a doubling or more than doubling of the occupation force. What this does is it subverts the citizenry in the United States. You no longer have to have a draft. You don't have to depend on your own citizens to fight your wars. You can simply hire up the poor of the world to work for American and British companies occupying another country.
BILL MOYERS:: What do these private contractors, their guys, make compared to American soldiers on the ground?
JEREMY SCAHILL:Well it varies widely depending on the company, depending on their role, depending on their nationality. If you're a former Navy Seal or a Delta Force guy working for Blackwater, you can make about 600 dollars a day for your work in Iraq. I mean, we're talking six figure salaries. Some of these guys working for private military companies make as much as-- as General Petreyas if not more.
BILL MOYERS:: Which is?
JEREMY SCAHILL:He makes about $180,000 a year. Average troops in the ground, some of these kids are being paid forty thousand dollars a year to be in the exact same war zone as Erik Prince's men from Blackwater. And they're wearing the American flag on their shoulder, not the Blackwater logo. ........................
BILL MOYERS: The thought was, you know, suppose we had a national emergency. Suppose the terrorists struck again. And a President, President Hillary Clinton, or President Barack Obama declared marshal law in order to try to deal with this threat. And there was a private army of twenty thousand soldiers that I could call upon to throw a ring around the capital and make sure that the Congress didn't leave town or didn't get back to the capital if-- how far fetched is that?
JEREMY SCAHILL:Well, I mean, I was in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. And I think we saw a real window into the possible future. You know, I was standing on a street corner in the French quarter on Bourbon Street. And I was talking to two New York City police officer who had come down to help. And this is just a couple of days after the hurricane had hit. And this car speeds up next to us. No license plates on it, a compact car. And three massive guys get out of it. And they have M-4 assault rifles, bullet proof vests, wearing khakis, wrap around sunglasses, baseball caps on. And they come up and they say to the cops, "Where are the rest of the Blackwater guys?" And my head sort of started, you know, I didn't even hear the answer. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Where are the rest of the Blackwater guys? So, they get back in their vehicle and they speed off. And I said to this cop, Blackwater? You mean the guys in Iraq and Afghanistan? They said, oh, yeah. They're all over the place down here. And so, I said, well, I'd like to talk to them. Where are they? And they said, you can go either way on the street, implying that they're everywhere. So, I walked a little bit deeper into the French quarter. And sure enough, I encountered some Blackwater guys. And when I talked to them, they said that they were down there to confront criminals and stop looters.
BILL MOYERS: Who called them in?
JEREMY SCAHILL:And-- well, this is an interesting story. Erik Prince sent them in there with no contract initially. About 180 Blackwater guys were sent into the Gulf. They got there before FEMA. I don't even know if FEMA's there yet. But they got there before FEMA, before there was any kind of a serious operation in the city at all.
BILL MOYERS: On Prince's own decision?
JEREMY SCAHILL:Well, so Prince sends them in. Within a week, Blackwater was given a contract from the Department of Homeland Security Federal Protective Service to engage in security operations inside of New Orleans. At one point, Blackwater had six hundred men deployed down there stretching from Mississippi through-- from Texas through Mississippi and the Gulf. They were pulling in $240,000 a day. Some of these guys though had just been in Iraq two weeks earlier guarding the US ambassador. Now, they're in New Orleans. They say, oh, we do this sort of as a vacation. One was complaining to me that there wasn't enough action down here. And when I talked to them, they told me they were getting paid 350 dollars a day, plus a per diem.
BILL MOYERS: By homeland security?
JEREMY SCAHILL:Well, they were being paid by Blackwater. When I got Blackwater's contract with the Department of Homeland Security, it turns out that Blackwater billed US taxpayers 950 dollars per man per day in the hurricane zone.
BILL MOYERS: A profit margin of 600 dollars.
JEREMY SCAHILL:Well, I mean, the math on this stuff is always complicated. And Erik Prince and his men are very good at drawing up charts and sort of, you know, just saying, well, there's this detail and this detail. The Department of Homeland Security then did an internal review and they determined that it was the best value to the taxpayer, at a time when the poor residents of New Orleans were being chastised for how they used their two thousand dollar debit cards that often didn't work, the ones provided by FEMA. But what was even scarier than seeing the Blackwater operatives on the streets of New Orleans was, I encountered two Israeli commandos who had been brought in by a wealthy businessman in New Orleans and set up an armed checkpoint outside of his gated community. And they were from a company called Instinctive Shooting International. ISI, which is an Israeli company. I mean, and I went up and I talked to them. And they tapped on their automatic weapons and said, you know, over in our country, when the Palestinians see this, they're not so afraid because they're used to it. But you people, you see it, and you're very afraid. They were almost proud of the fact that I was sort of in awe seeing Israeli commandos patrolling a US street, operating in fact an armed check point.
BILL MOYERS: I mean, once upon a time, companies and others hired Pinkerton guards, private guards. But never on this scale, right?
JEREMY SCAHILL:No. I mean, you know, it was like Baghdad on the bayou down there in New Orleans. And-- I mean, this is the point I'm making. The poor drowned. They are left without food. They're called looters when they take perishable goods out of a store when they've been systematically neglected. The rich bring in their mercenaries to guard their properties or their businesses or their hotel chains. And I think it's a window into what happens in a national emergency. And in this country, the poor are left to suffer and die and the rich bring in their mercenaries.
Hedge Funds, Insiders, and the Decoupling of Economic and Voting Ownership: Empty Voting and Hidden (Morphable) Ownership
HENRY T.C. HU University of Texas at Austin - School of Law BERNARD S. BLACK University of Texas at Austin School of Law; McCombs School of Business, University of Texas at Austin; European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI)
Download PDF: Abstract: Most U.S. public companies have a single class of voting common shares: voting power is proportional to economic ownership. Linking votes to shares is often thought to be desirable, because, as residual claimants, shareholders have an incentive to exercise voting power well. The linkage also facilitates the market for corporate control. On the other hand, decoupling is efficient in some situations. Equity derivatives and other capital market developments now allow shareholders to readily decouple voting rights from economic ownership of shares, often without public disclosure. Hedge funds are prominent users of decoupling. Sometimes they hold more votes than economic ownership (a situation we term empty voting). Sometimes they hold undisclosed economic ownership without votes, but often with the de facto ability to acquire votes if needed (a situation we term hidden (morphable) ownership). This Article analyzes empty voting and hidden (morphable) ownership, which we term the new vote buying. We offer a framework for unpacking its functional elements and assess its potential benefits and costs. Two companion legal articles (Hu and Black, 2006a, 2006b) provide more details on current disclosure rules and offer a disclosure reform proposal.
John Calvin The Predestinator “God preordained, for his own glory and the display of His attributes of mercy and justice, a part of the human race, without any merit of their own, to eternal salvation, and another part, in just punishment of their sin, to eternal damnation”
that God has already preordained every single thing that happens in the world. Most importantly, even one's own salvation or condemnation to hell is already a done deal as far as God is concerned. By this philosophical scheme, human will is not involved in changing the course of history. All that is left for the "righteous" to do is to play out their pre- ordained role, including their God-given right to dominate everyone else.
Calvinism arose in Europe centuries ago in part as a reaction to Roman Catholicism's heavy emphasis on priestly authority and on salvation through acts of penance. One of the classic works of sociology, Max Weber's -- Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, links the rise of Calvinism to the needs of budding capitalists to judge their own economic success as a sign of their preordained salvation. The rising popularity of Calvinism coincided with the consolidation of the capitalist economic system. Calvinists justified their accumulation of wealth, even at the expense of others, on the grounds that they were somehow destined to prosper. (emphasis mine-jb) It is no surprise that such notions still find resonance within the Christian Right which champions capitalism and all its attendant inequalities.
The hitch comes in the Calvinists' unyielding predestinarianism, the cornerstone of Reconstructionism and something at odds with the world view of evangelical Christians.
The problem is that evangelicals (a category including pentecostal charismatics and fundamental Baptists) believe that God's will works in conjunction with free human will. They believe that salvation is not by the grace of God only but by the faith of individual believers who freely choose to surrender to Jesus. In fact, the cornerstone of the Western religions is the view that God's will and human will work together. Evangelicals believe strongly that humans freely choose sin or salvation and that those already converted have the duty to go out and offer the choice they have made to others. Calvinism, in contrast, undercuts the whole motivation for missionary work, and it is the missionary zeal to redeem sinners that motivates much of the Christian Right's political activism. Calvinism is an essentially reckless doctrine. If God has already decided what's going to happen, then the Dominionists do not have to take responsibility for their actions. (They can kill abortion doctors "knowing" it is the right thing to do.) Evangelicals, even those on the Right, still believe they as individuals are capable of error.
From Let There Be Markets: The Evangelical Roots of Economics, GORDON BIGELOW, Harper's Magazine, May, 2005
These [evangelicals] were middle-class reformers who wanted to reshape Protestant doctrine. For them it was unthinkable that capitalism led to class conflict, for that would mean that God had created a world at war with itself. The evangelicals believed in a providential God, one who built a logical and orderly universe, and they saw the new industrial economy as a fulfillment of God's plan. The free market, they believed, was a perfectly designed instrument to reward good Christian behavior and to punish and humiliate the unrepentant.
At the center of this early evangelical doctrine was the idea of original sin: we were all born stained by corruption and fleshly desire, and the true purpose of earthly life was to redeem this. The trials of economic life-the sweat of hard labor, the fear of poverty, the self-denial involved in saving-were earthly tests of sinfulness and virtue. While evangelicals believed salvation was ultimately possible only through conversion and faith, they saw the pain of earthly life as means of atonement for original sin."
The Calvinists, or the Reformed divinity were less bound to precedent and adjusted itself rapidly to the new economy. With this protestant work ethic of practicing thrift, temperance, honesty, and consideration for others, they became a successful merchant class. As wealth accumulated and the system spread, Puritan restraints began to wane. Righteousness, however, degenerated into a white-washed excuse to get rich by exploiting those not of the same faith. They took advantage of the poor because they had not been granted God's favor of prosperity and squandered their income on worldy pleasures. The countries in which capitalism had made the greatest headway were prevailingly Protestant countries. Ruthlessness itself became a virtue when Darwin's theory of the survival of the fittest gained popularity.
The tougher and the more aggressive a man was in business, the more he reached the top by whatever means. As social values declined, imperialism by the "Christian" countries gained a divine mandate where exploitation of the world's resources was justified. Little thought was given to the realities of international order or a social gospel and assumptions were made that world-wide markets would run of their own accord. This new attitude toward economic matters manifested itself among businessmen and may be called the capitalist spirit.
Luther was opposed to the spirit of capitalism and attributed the rise of prices to the rapacity of the capitalists. The great scandal for Marx was that the capitalist system produced surplus goods, and yet the producers themselves, the workers, were unable to purchase them and reap what they had sown. Marxists denounced democracy but not as an ideology, but rather the vulgar and evil manipulation of democracy by the capitalist profiteer, vulgar because he shares the public's bad taste, evil because he perpetuates it.
Tracing today's capitalism to the church leaves an evil mark. The Reformation in its Calvinist version made religion a thing of this world and achieved the miracle of identifying blessings with the accumulation of riches. The shame of profiteering was wiped away and what was formerly lust for wealth became the fulfillment of God's purposes on earth. Capitalism gave birth to the luke-warm church. Since money was no longer loaned primarily to assist those who were in need but for profit, the Biblical, canonical and other restrictions upon usury and mammon worship were either circumvented or ignored. Even church offices and means of grace were frequently viewed in terms of financial returns. Sin piled upon avarice until deregulation and the anarchy of the market created an environment where greed became a virtue and religious way of life. Pretentious saints would pray for financial reward and giving became a means to expect a blessing in return. Hireling pastors preached prosperity from the pulpit to gain more money and faith became a seed for accumulation.
................all Mister Bush and Cheney and the Republican Party have left: the hope and prayer that -- between now and November, 2008 -- terrorists will attack the United States. They aren't exactly hiding their desire. Certainly FOX News's John Gibson isn't hiding his hope for another 9/11-like attack. The administration and their surrogates have said things like, "Boy, how soon the American people forget what happened on 9/11," or "When the next 9/11 happens, then the people will learn," or "After the next big terror attack, then the people will see the wisdom of George W. Bush's war in Iraq."
I noticed over at www.ontheborderline.nut a post on the upcoming screening of the documentary Indoctrination U. It definitely sounds and something I will make it a point to see.
The focus of the film is that there's a liberal bias that has taken over our nations universities - public and private. Listeners of conservative talk radio will be quite familiar with this theme. I hear Limbaugh, Hannity, Levine and Jason Lewis harp on this regularly. Lewis calls the University of Minnesota "a Marxist Think tank."
The right wing point is that the liberals are trying to indoctrination the innocent minds of today's college students with Marxist/communist/socialist/liberal doctrine and trying to silence the conservative voice.
By the way, I recently watched a History channel documentary on the 1964 Mississippi Voter Rights Drive. It was interesting to see the Klansmen protesting the northern White students coming to spend a summer in Mississippi to help Blacks exercise their Constitutional right to vote. The Klansmen were carrying signs with slogans like "Keep The Commies Out Of Mississippi!!!" and "Commies Go Home!!!" Hello OTBL bloggers...does that sound familiar?
Anyway, I especially find it interesting the bloggers like those at ontheborderline.nut would be trying to promote a documentary about stifling freedom of speech. They do it all the time and are proud of it! They are afraid of open discussion and debate.
Another point about colleges dampening freedom of speech. I think it's bullshit. I think we have a majority of a generation of college students who are used to having mommy and daddy fight their battles for them. These are the "bubble warpped" kids that Conservative Charlies Sekes speaks of. "Helicopter parents" is a phrased used to describe their parents who won't quit hovering around their kids. They don't have the balls to stand up and fight for what they believe in. Or maybe it's the conservative students who don't have the balls...probably because they don't really believe in what they are fighting for.
If a student is afraid to express his or her opinion because it might affect their grade, I say they don't really believe in what they are afraid to debate. One bad grade does not a college career make. Believe me, I've been there and done that and proudly took my GPA lumps. Besides, you can take your case to the college dean, if you think you are getting a raw deal. This is all part of the great learning experience of college.
At the top of this post, I put a trailer of the documentary. At the bottom, I posted a clip of Sean Hannity interviewing Evan Coyne Maloney, the maker of Indoctrination U. I think Hannity shows the hypocrisy of his flimsy ideological spew. FOX News talking about "fair and balanced?" Have you ever heard Vice President Dick Cheney interviewed on anything about conservative radio or TV?
And so it goes...
Read what is being said about Indoctrination U around the Internet.
For times and screenings of the Twin City showings, check out Indcotrination-U.
"Jay P. Greene and Marcus A. Winters have an op-ed in today's Wall Street Journal suggesting that teachers aren't really underpaid at all. "Public school teachers earned $34.06 per hour in 2005, 36% more than the hourly wage of the average white-collar worker and 11% more than the average professional specialty or technical worker," they write. So should teachers stop their whining? Are we all misguided in our beliefs that teachers are underpaid for the critical work that they do? I don't think so. (In addition to being the ball-and-chain of one of the regular Plank denizens, I'm an education policy and research consultant, and I also teach a remedial reading class at a charter school.)
There are three big problems with their op-ed. The first is their assumptions. They assume that teachers work a 35-hour work week. Yes, that may be the number of hours they spend in the classroom, but as any teacher knows, preparation, grading, and maintaining relationships with parents are extremely time consuming activities. Greene and Winters discount this additional work, arguing that in other careers, people take home work as well. But its not fair to compare teachers' planning and preparation to "take-home work" in other careers, since these additional activities are an integral and necessary part of teaching. Especially in the elementary grades, teachers have very little planning time built into their days and planning is an essential part of teaching. Unless we want unprepared teachers who get up and wing it every day, planning time needs to be considered an essential part of a teacher's duties.
In an ideal world, teachers would have about half of their time for planning and preparation. In reality, the National Education Association has conducted research on teacher working conditions and found that teachers spend an average of 50 hours per week on all teaching duties. When that assumption is figured into the calculation, teachers' hourly wage drops to an average of $24. ....
.............. Third, Greene and Winters insist that teacher pay doesn't matter because urban areas with the highest teacher pay have the most abysmal outcomes. This is a ridiculous argument. As decades of research has shown, a whole host of demographic and socioeconomic factors affect student achievement, particularly in high-poverty urban districts. If we wanted a true test of the effects of teachers' salaries on the quality of teaching in urban districts, we'd have to randomly assign teachers with higher salaries to socio-economically similar districts and see if the higher paid teachers have a greater impact on student achievement."
"Finally, saying that teachers earn "enough" misses the point. Enough for what? Everybody agrees that we don't have enough high-quality teachers, particularly in high-poverty districts. Of course it's not all about money--working conditions and the professionalization and respect afforded the profession matter a great deal. On the other hand, if we paid teachers $150,000 per year, they'd probably be willing to endure the poor working conditions. Conservatives like to think the market works for everything else except teachers' salaries. I say we conduct an experiment and see how it works--let's double teachers' salaries in a random sample of districts and see if we don't get top quality teachers."
So I went to this taxpayer rally today... The crowd of anti-taxers was smaller than I'd hoped, and way outnumbered by the public employee unions. AFSCME, SEIU, AFT, and TAA were all there. Probably others. They crowded around the entrance to the rally, yelling things at people on their way in. "Let the rich white women in," "step on a state employee on your way in, why doncha," and "you should be ashamed!"
Stuff like that. I went in and out three times, the last time just for fun. Exchanged a few pleasant words.
And now that Mr. Bush has proved himself utterly the wrong man for the job — to be, in fact, the best president Al Qaeda’s recruiters could have hoped for — the symptoms of Gore derangement syndrome have grown even more extreme.
The worst thing about Mr. Gore, from the conservative point of view, is that he keeps being right. In 1992, George H. W. Bush mocked him as the “ozone man,” but three years later the scientists who discovered the threat to the ozone layer won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. In 2002 he warned that if we invaded Iraq, “the resulting chaos could easily pose a far greater danger to the United States than we presently face from Saddam.” And so it has proved.
"Citizens of western Wisconsin need to see to it that Kitty Rhoades is defeated in the next election for Assembly. The obfuscation and utter contempt for real reform to this state's education finance system, and government spending in general, is beyond the pale...
...Kitty Rhoades is committed to compromise and consensus. By definition this is the negation of leadership. But leadership implies a philosophical foundation and a true sense of morality and an honest attempt at conviction - Kitty Rhoades has none of these traits...
Folks there can be no compromise, when compromise is a losing game for you and me. Every "compromise" is another loss of liberty - run for your life from the compromising elected representative for it is the calling card of an approaching looter. Kitty Rhoades is a pathetic, ineffective, compromising RINO who has no intentions of even raising the debates that are needed in this state (same holds true for the farm girl Senator) - don't let anyone tell you otherwise. And if you are smart you'll vote both of these representatives out of office and elect true fiscal conservatives who have fundamental, market based, change foremost in their minds, not consensus and compromise."
Flash www.ontheborderline.nut North Hudson, WI
“The greatness of Christianity did not lie in attempted negotiations for compromise with any similar philosophical opinions in the ancient world, but in its inexorable fanaticism in preaching and fighting for its own doctrine”
Adolf Hitler
FYI:
"obfuscation" define:
-bewilderment: confusion resulting from failure to understand
-mystification: the activity of obscuring people's understanding, leaving them baffled or bewildered
The National Security Agency and other government agencies retaliated against Qwest because the Denver telco refused to go along with a phone spying program, documents released Wednesday suggest.
The documents indicate that likely would have been at the heart of former CEO Joe Nacchio's so-called "classified information" defense at his insider trading trial, had he been allowed to present it.
The secret contracts - worth hundreds of millions of dollars - made Nacchio optimistic about Qwest's future, even as his staff was warning him the company might not make its numbers, Nacchio's defense attorneys have maintained. But Nacchio didn't present that argument at trial.
"Man is not free unless government is limited. There's a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: As government expands, liberty contracts."
"...It's the shared benefit people get from being in a group. If you're on a soccer team you cooperate to share the thrill of winning. Special rewards are possible. Another: two people are just two people. But if a friendship grows, the two people are a tiny collective. They work together and share a common outlook. Trust grows, they support each other, later there may grow an unspoken sense of obligation to each other, and so big things become possible. More examples: ships' crews, marriages, business partnerships, military units, countries; each involves a "with" or an "us." In a nation that has a common good, everybody mucks in together, and society takes care of its own." "...Ayn Rand's ideology was that force. Ayn Rand was a public flamboyant who wrote, lectured, and harangued from the 1940s to the 1970s. She mounted vaulting attacks on the common good. Her point: that "mutual obligation" stuff robs you of your personal freedom. To get ahead, she argued, you have to break the bonds of obligation. Selfishness is actually virtue. Altruism toward the less able, she said, is a vice. If you have real talent you should avoid groups, teams, and organizations. You should work on solo flight, not stopping to help average people who are hopelessly mired in conformity. Her two novels, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, have heroes who are pioneering, productive loners. And a free market, she argues, needs such heroes; because it is a dog-eat-dog world in which people with excellence propel themselves to the top and do more good for their nation in their selfishness than all the welfare and social programs can. Welfare programs just perpetuate mediocrity."
There'll be war, there'll be peace.But everything one day will cease.All the iron turned to rust;All the proud men turned to dust.And so all things, time will mend.So this song will end.
--Pink Floyd
