There are still many very influential people in the US government and academia and the media who are gung ho attack Iran idiots. Many, perhaps most of them maintain dual Israeli-US citizenship so that it cannot possibly be clear to which country their primary loyalty lies. And to suggest that the interests of the Israelis and the US are one and the same is to demonstrate either a willful ignorance or willful naivete or venal cycnicism that are too shameful for words to describe. War mongering, cock-biting, ball-busting war criminals all.
The Occupy Movement Holds the Key
Stopping an Attack on Iran
by HARVEY WASSERMAN
The global Occupy Movement has come to life just in time.
War is the health of the corporate state. The 1% needs its endless cash flow to stay in power.
As the slaughters in Iraq and Afghanistan transform into something less visible, the 1% war machine must have a new profit center. The pretext for this latest war is the spectre of a nuclear-armed Iran. It’s a tawdry re-run of the lies George W. Bush used to sell the 2003 attack on Iraq. It’s no surprise those “Weapons of Mass Destruction” were never found—or that Bush could later joke about it.
The hypocrisy of the 1% railing against bombs allegedly flowing from Iran’s “Peaceful Atom” program comes in unholy tandem with the corporate push for a “nuclear renaissance” peddling these same reactors all over the world. (It helps to remember that the nuclear industry once tried to sell 36 “peaceful” reactors to the Shah).
STOPPING THE ATTACK ON IRAN IS ABSOLUTELY VITAL TO OUR HOPES FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE AND DEMOCRACY. THE OCCUPY MOVEMENT HOLDS THE KEY.
The slaughter in Iraq and Afghanistan has been horrific, but pales beside the bloodshed that could come next. Iran is a far more advanced country, with 76 million people. It’s powerful, diverse and sophisticated, with significant ties to Russia, China, India and throughout the mideast. In the 1980s it fought a land war with Iraq that killed a million people. Does the 1% expect us to embrace a re-run?
It’s up to our newly energized grassroots movement to stop this madness before it happens.
Remember that peace movements have been critical in shaping the course of history. For example, Richard Nixon’s “secret plan” to beat Southeast Asia into submission included the use of nuclear weapons. But he refrained, in part because of his well-justified fear of a national upheaval.
Global demonstrations failed to stop George W. Bush from attacking Iraq. Today the GOP wannabes are AGAIN howling for war. There are certainly advisors within the Obama Administration arguing—as they did for Bush in 2003—that an on-going war might be a ticket to re-election.
We must find non-violent ways to stop this war in Iran. Old tactics and new—time-tested strategies and ones not yet imagined—will surface and resurface in the coming months. The de facto universities, debating societies, strategizing collectives, and action groups that help define the Occupy Movement will give birth to a new generation’s means of making social change. If we work hard enough at it, one or more of them will hold the key to our future. Somewhere, somehow, the means for stopping the next war must emerge.
The truly great news is that we are all now party to every organizer’s dream: a spontaneous eruption of the global dispossessed. It is a thoughtful, sophisticated, diverse, energized populace, ready to change the world—and compelled to find the non-violent means for doing it.
Step one is to cut off the endless military spending that is the lifeblood of the 1%, and to begin starving out the warfare state.
It’s the only way to a world built on social justice and ecological survival.
So let’s find that fork in the road…and take it!!! SEE YOU IN THE STREETS!
Harvey Wasserman, a co-founder of Musicians United for Safe Energy, is editing the nukefree.org web site. He is the author of SOLARTOPIA! Our Green-Powered Earth, A.D. 2030, is atwww.solartopia.org. He can be reached at: Windhw@aol.com
Making War Palatable
Is Israel Preparing to Attack Iran?
by NEVE GORDON
Skimming the newspapers as I rushed to get my children ready for school, I suddenly understood that Israel might actually be preparing for a military attack against Iran. “[United States Secretary of Defence Leon] Panetta Demanded Commitment to Coordinate Action in Iran” read one headline, and “A Bomb at Arm’s Length” read another.
Feeding this hype were a series of military events that had been planned months in advance yet mysteriously coincided with the publication of the International Atomic Energy Agency report on Iran’s efforts to produce a nuclear bomb. For four days straight all of the major television channels repeatedly showed images of Israel preparing for war.
It began with a report on Israel’s testing of a long-range ballistic missile, which emphasised the missile’s capacity to carry nuclear warheads. This was followed by interviews with pilots who were part of a comprehensive Israeli Air Force drill on long-range attacks carried out at an Italian NATO air base. Archival images of a missile being launched from an Israeli submarine were also shown. Ha’aretz readers were told that the submarine was important because it would enable Israel to carry out a second strike in case of a nuclear war.
These images of offensive arrangements were followed by images of Israel’s defence preparations. On November 3rd, the three major news channels dedicated several minutes of air time to covering a drill simulating an attack on central Israel; these clips showed people being carried on stretchers and soldiers treating casualties who had been hit by chemical weapons. A day later, Ha’aretz reported that the military preparations against Iran had indeed been upgraded.
Iran with nuclear capabilities has been continuously presented as an existential threat to Israel. On October 31, in the opening speech of the Knesset’s winter session Prime Minister Netanyahu noted that a “nuclearised Iran will constitute a serious threat to the Middle East and to the whole world and obviously also a direct and serious threat against us,” adding that Israel’s security conception cannot be based on defence alone but must also include “offensive capabilities which serve as the basis for deterrence.”
Analysts repeatedly mentioned that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a Holocaust denier and Reuven Barko from Yisrael Hayom even compared Iran to Nazi Germany. One cannot underestimate the impact of this analogy on the collective psyche of Jewish Israelis.
Barko went on to connect Hamlet’s phrase “to be or not to be” to Israel’s current situation, while posing the existing dilemma confronting the State as “to hit or not to hit”. President Shimon Peres claimed that Iran is the only country in the world “that threatens the existence of another country”, but neglected to mention that for generations, the Palestinians have been deprived of their right to self-determination.
On the day when the International Atomic Energy Agency report was finally published practically all Israeli media outlets described it as a “smoking gun”. The report, according to the media, provides concrete evidence that Iran’s nuclear programme is also aimed at producing weapons. Zvi Yechezkeli from Channel Ten described it as “the end of the era of Iranian ambiguousness”, but failed, of course, to remark that Israel’s own ambiguity regarding its nuclear capacities continues unhindered; Roni Daniel from Channel Two declared that “we are relieved” by the report, suggesting that Israel’s claims have now been corroborated and that the report can serve to justify both the imposition of harsher sanctions against Iran and even an attack.
Notwithstanding the endless war mongering, most Israeli commentators claimed that the frenzy was no more than a “nuclear spin”. The majority of political analysts tended to agree that the media campaign, which presented Israel as seriously preparing to attack Iran, was orchestrated just in order to pressure the international community to impose harsher sanctions against Iran. Channel Ten’s Or Heller put it succinctly when he said: “It appears that neither Iran nor the Israeli public is the target of what is going on here, but first and foremost it is the international community, the Americans, the British.”
The commentators also noted that there is wall-to-wall opposition to an Israeli assault, including the US, Europe, Russia and China. Alex Fishman summed up the international sentiment when he wrote: “If someone in Israel thinks that there is a green or a yellow light coming from Washington for a military attack against Iran – this person has no inkling whatsoever of what is going on; the light remains the same, a glaring red.”
The portrayal of Israel as a neighbourhood bully who feigns a rage attack while calling out to his friends to hold him back is not particularly reassuring, however.
After 10 days of media frenzy, Defence Minister Ehud Barak tried to calm the public by saying that “not even 500 people would be killed” in the event of an attack – but he failed to say that there would be no attack.
Yossi Verter from Ha’aretz explained that the media hype serves Barak’s interests. “A successful attack on the Iranian nuclear facilities under his ministerial leadership can rehabilitate his personal status, and help him recover the public’s trust.” Verter cites a leading member of the political system, who claims that “Barak is convinced that only a person of his security stature can lead perhaps the most fateful battle in Israel’s history since the War of Independence.”
Regardless of whether Netanyahu and Barak are already set on launching an assault, the media hype and the portrayal of Iran as constituting an existential threat to Israel surely help to produce the necessary conditions for a military campaign.
What is remarkable about this saber rattling is its abstraction. Not a single analyst noted that entering war is easy but ending it is far more difficult, particularly if on the other side stands a regional power with vast resources and a well-trained military (unlike Hamas or Hezbollah). And, of course, no one really talked about the likelihood of a gory future or what kind of life we were planning for our children. This kind of abstraction makes war palatable, providing a great service to the war machine.
Neve Gordon is an Israeli activist and the author of and author ofIsrael’s Occupation (University of California Press, 2008). He can be contacted through his website www.israelsoccupation.info
The Anti-Democracy Campaign in Israel
Weimar Revisited
by URI AVNERY
“YOU AND your Weimar!” a friend of mine once exclaimed in exasperation, ”just because you experienced the collapse of the Weimar Republic as a child, you see Weimar behind every corner.”
The accusation was not unjustified. In 1960, during the Eichmann trial, I wrote a book about the fall of the German Republic. Its last chapter was called: “It can happen here” Since then I have come back to this warning time and again.
But now I am not alone anymore. During the last few weeks, the word Weimar has popped up in the articles of many commentators.
It should be sprayed in huge letters on the walls.
* * *
ISRAELI DEMOCRACY is under siege. No one can ignore this anymore. It is the main topic in the Knesset, which is leading the attack, and the media, who are among the victims.
This does not happen in the occupied territories. There, democracy never existed. Occupation is the very opposite of democracy: a denial of all human rights, the right to life, liberty, movement, fair trial and free expression, not to mention national rights.
No, I mean Israel proper, the Israel inside the Green Line, The Only Democracy In The Middle East.
The attackers are members of Binyamin Netanyahu’s government coalition, which includes semi-fascist and openly fascist elements. Netanyahu himself tries to remain discreetly in the background, but there can be no doubt that every single detail has been orchestrated by him.
In the first two years of this coalition, attacks were sporadic. But now they are determined, systematic and coordinated.
At this moment, the anti-democratic forces are attacking on a wide front, The three main pillars of democracy – the courts, the media and the human rights organizations – are under simultaneous, deadly assault. (Remember Weimar?)
* * *
THE SUPREME COURT is the bastion of democracy. Israel has no constitution, the Knesset majority is totally unbridled, only the court can (if reluctantly) check the adoption of anti-democratic laws.
I am not a blind admirer of the court. In the occupied territories, it is an arm of the occupation, devoted to “national security”, approving of some of the worst incidents. Only in rare cases has it come out against the worst practices. But in Israel proper, it is a stout defender of civil rights.
The extreme rightists in the Knesset are resolved to put an end to this. Their front man is the Minister of Justice, who was appointed by Avigdor Lieberman. He is pushing a series of scandalous ad hominem bills. One of them is designed to change the composition of the public committee that appoints the judges, with the undisguised intention of bringing about the appointment of a particular right-wing judge to the Supreme Court.
Another bill has the undisguised purpose of changing the existing court rules in order to put a certain “conservative” judge in the chair of Chief Justice. The declared purpose is to abolish the rule of an independent court which dares, though only in rare cases, to block “anti-constitutional” laws enacted by the Knesset majority. They want the court to “represent the will of the people”. (Remember Weimar?)
Until now, since the first day of the state, the justices have been, in practice, chosen by cooptation. This has functioned perfectly for 63 years. Israel’s Supreme Court is the envy of many countries. Now this system is in mortal danger.
Another bill, which would have compelled candidates for the Supreme Court to undergo grilling by a Knesset Committee chaired by another Lieberman appointee, and obtain their approval, was withheld at the last moment by Netanyahu himself, He had already given his approval, but shrank back after the almost universal condemnation – and is now posing as the defender of democracy from his own underlings.
The chairman of the Judicial Committee of the Knesset, another Lieberman appointee, is rushing these laws through his committee, contrary to established procedures. In a stormy session this week, a female member called him “a coarse thug”. He replied: “You are not even a beast”.
A minimal purpose of these bills is to terrorize any judges considering vetoing the other anti-democratic bills that are being enacted. Some say that the effects are already being felt.
In several famous cases, the government openly flouts the Supreme Court’s orders, especially concerning the evacuation of “settlements outposts” built on lands belonging to Palestinian farmers.
Who will defend the court? The former Chief Justice, Aharon Barak, who was hated by the rightists because of his pioneering “judicial activism”, once told me: “The Court has no army divisions. Its power rests solely on the support of the public.”
* * *
THE ASSAULT on the media started some time ago when the American casino baron, Sheldon Adelson, a close friend of Netanyahu, started a daily tabloid paper with the express purpose of helping Netanyahu. It is being distributed for free and now has the biggest circulation in the country, threatening the existence of all the others (but also bribing them by giving them huge printing orders.) Money is no object. Huge sums are being spent.
That was only the beginning.
In 1965 the Labor party government enacted a new libel law (called literally “the Law of the Evil Tongue”) which was then clearly designed to muzzle “Haolam Hazeh”, the mass-circulation news magazine I was editing, which had introduced investigative reporting to Israel. I appealed to the public to send me to the Knesset in protest, and 1.5% of the voters were incensed enough to do so.
Now the right-wing gang in the Knesset wants to sharpen this anti-media law even more. The new amendment grants up to $135,000 damages to anyone claiming to be hurt by the media, without their having to prove any damage at all. For newspapers and TV channels, which are already in a precarious financial position, this means that they better give up all investigative reporting and any criticism of influential politicians and tycoons.
The new winds are already being felt. Journalists and TV editors are cowed. This week, a program on Channel 10, considered the most liberal, gave five minutes to a song glorifying the late “Rabbi” Meir Kahane, who was branded by the Supreme Court as a fascist, and whose organization was outlawed for advocating what the court called “Nuremberg laws”. An avowed member of this organization, which is alive and kicking under another name, is now a vocal member of the Knesset. (Remember Weimar?)
A major purge of TV journalists is already underway. One by one, directors of all TV channels are being replaced by confirmed rightists. It was openly admitted that the government would force the closure of Channel 10 by calling in outstanding debts if a certain journalist were not fired. Though generally an establishment type, this reporter had irked Netanyahu by exposing his and his wife’s luxurious traveling style at government expense.
* * *
AT THE same time, human rights and peace NGOs are under heavy attack. The Knesset gang is producing bill after bill to silence them.
One bill already under way forbids human rights associations to receive donations from foreign governments and “state-like organizations”, such as the UN and the EU. Right-wing organization receive, of course, huge sums of money from Jewish American billionaires, who fund the settlements (which are also indirectly financed by the US treasury, which gives tax-exempt status to the so-called “charitable organizations” that fund the settlements.)
The law which levies huge indemnities on organizations and individuals who advocate a boycott on the products of the settlements is already in force. The hearing of an application submitted by Gush Shalom to the Supreme Court against this suppression of political protest has been postponed by the court again and again and again.
This parliamentary terrorism is accompanied by the accelerating violence of fascist gangs from the settlements. These SA-like gangs call their actions “Price Tag”. Usually, they react to the isolated cases of the army demolishing a few “illegal” buildings in a settlement by attacking a neighboring Palestinian village, setting fire to a mosque or carrying out what can only be described as a pogrom. (Remember Weimar?)
* * *
MARTIN NIEMÖLLER, a German U-boat captain and later pacifist pastor, who was thrown into a concentration camp by the Nazis , coined the famous lament: “When the Nazis came to take the Communists, I was silent. After all, I was no Communist. When they took the Jews, I was silent. I am no Jew. When they arrested the Social Democrats, I was silent. I was no Social Democrat. When they came to take me, there was no one left to protest.”
What we are witnessing now are not isolated attacks on one or another human right – what we are seeing is a general attack on democracy as such. Perhaps only people who have experienced life under a fascist dictatorship can fully realize what that means.
Of course, the similarity between the collapse of the German republic and the processes in today’s Israel does not mean that the same events must follow. Nazism was unique in many ways. The end of real democracy may be followed by different systems. There are many models to choose from: Ceausescu, Franco, Putin.
Certainly, there is no similarity between the small German town called Weimar and Tel Aviv. Except perhaps the fact that many houses in Tel Aviv were designed according to the Bauhaus architectural school – which originated in Weimar.
Weimar was once a cultural center, where geniuses like Goethe and Schiller produced their masterpieces. The German republic which was founded in 1919, after World War I, was called by this name after the national assembly which framed its very progressive constitution there.
On these lines, the endangered democratic State of Israel, whose Declaration of Independence was signed in 1948 in Tel Aviv, could rightly be called the Tel Aviv Republic.
We are not yet in 1932. The Storm Troopers are not yet roaming our streets. We still have time to mobilize the public against the looming danger. The demonstration taking place today in Tel Aviv against the de-democratization of Israel may mark a turning point.
URI AVNERY is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom. He is a contributor to CounterPunch’s book The Politics of Anti-Semitism.
An Ideological Tragedy
Will the Euro be Destroyed?
by DEAN BAKER
We could be living through the last days of the euro. That is not a happy thought. While there were many negative aspects to the rules governing the European Central Bank and the eurozone economies, no one can want to see the economic chaos that will almost certainly follow the collapse of the euro.
There will likely be a wave of bank collapses as banks are forced to write down much of the debt they hold in Italy, Ireland and other heavily indebted countries. This would bring about another Lehman-type situation where finance freezes up. Banks would stop lending to each other and even healthy businesses would find it difficult to obtain credit.
That is the story of a severe double-dip in the eurozone, with the spillover effect almost certainly pushing the United States and most of the rest of the world into recession. It could easily be over a decade until these economies recover from the damage.
The absurdity of this story is that such a collapse could be easily prevented. The recipe is simple. The European Central Bank (ECB) must agree to backdrop the debt of Italy and most of the other heavily indebted countries, after a write-down of Greek debt. It should also have an expansionary policy that allows somewhat higher inflation in Germany so that the peripheral countries can regain competitiveness by having lower positive inflation rates.
The current low inflation rate in Germany, requires that Spain, Italy and other peripheral countries actually have deflation to improve their competitiveness. This is difficult to accomplish and likely to lead to many years of slow growth and high unemployment in these countries.
While the basic logic of the situation should be apparent even to people without formal training in economics, the ECB seems oblivious to it. The preferred path from the ECB, along with its partners the IMF and the European Union, is to require that the heavily indebted countries just keep cutting their deficits. This leads to further reductions in demand, which causes higher unemployment. As the unemployment rate rises, tax collections fall and payment for transfer programs like unemployment benefits increase. The result is that the deficits get larger and the debt-to-GDP ratio rises.
The absurdity of the ECB agenda should have become apparent even to its top officials when they came up with the idea of a new expanded bailout fund. To make the fund more potent, the ECB sent emissaries to China, Brazil, India, and Russia to encourage them to lend money to the fund.
This is truly a remarkable story since the per capita income of all of these countries is far below the average in the ECB. In Russia, the richest of the group, per capita income is just under $17,000 per year slightly more than half of the eurozone average. In India, per capita income is under $4,000 less than 15 percent of the average for the EU. In short, we have a confederation that includes many of the richest countries on the planet asking for handouts from countries that are much poorer.
Actually, if these fast-growing developing countries want to do the eurozone countries a favor, they will take a page from the IMF’s handbook. As my colleague Mark Weisbrot has suggested, they will offer the eurozone support for its bailout fund, but with conditions. The conditions would simply be that the ECB start following good macro policy. In other words it should agree to guarantee the debt of eurozone governments after arranging the necessary write downs for Greece and other countries that would have difficulty meeting their debt obligations even if they paid very low interest rates.
These countries could also require that the ECB target a somewhat higher inflation rate, in the range of 3-4 percent. This would facilitate the adjustment process for the peripheral countries. If inflation in the eurozone averaged 4 percent, with a somewhat higher rate in Germany and the continuation of near zero rates in Spain, Italy and other heavily indebted countries, then this latter group of countries will soon regain their competitiveness. The higher inflation will also help alleviate the debt burdens facing the peripheral countries.
The absurdity of this situation is that the eurozone countries would not need outside support from the BRICs if the ECB were prepared to pursue these policies today. Just as is the case now with the United States, there is no shortage of wealth in the EU, in the sense that it has the ability to produce vastly more goods and services than it is producing. The main problem is simply a lack of demand.
We have known how to generate demand since Keynes wrote his masterpiece in the 30s. However rather than pursue the simple steps needed to restore the eurozone’s economy to stable growth, the ECB is adhering to an ideological agenda that will destroy the euro and throw the economy into an even more severe recession than the last one. This is an extraordinary tragedy unraveling in slow motion in front of the world.
Dean Baker is the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). He is the author of False Profits: Recovering from the Bubble Economy . He also has a blog, ” Beat the Press ,” where he discusses the media’s coverage of economic issues.
This article was originally published by Al Jazeera.
No Transparency, Complete Secrecy
Powergrab at the ECB
by MIKE WHITNEY
“Time is running out fast. I think we have maybe a few months — it could be weeks, it could be days — before there is a material risk of a fundamentally unnecessary default by a country like Spain or Italy which would be a financial catastrophe dragging the European banking system and North America with it. So they have to act now.”
– Willem Buiter, Citi Chief Economist
As the boycott of sovereign bonds in Europe has spread beyond the south to triple-A-rated countries like Finland, the Netherlands and France, it’s become increasingly difficult for banks and corporations to get short-term financing. The cost of swapping euros for dollars is steadily rising while interbank lending has started to break down. As banks hoard more capital (to comply with new regulations) and scale-back their lending, companies will be forced to curtail operations and trim investment. This is how a debt crisis morphs into a credit crunch that slows growth and sends the economy hurtling back into recession.
According to the Financial Times, the four biggest banks in the UK have already cut “interbank loan volumes by more than 24 percent” a clear indication of the severity of the crisis. If policymakers are unable to settle on remedy that will calm the markets, then banks will continue to withhold credit and the economy will plunge.
On Friday, the ECB announced that it would increase its bond purchasing program (the Securities Markets Programme) to $27 billion per week in order stop the contagion and shore up teetering sovereigns like Italy and Spain. Here’s an excerpt from Bloomberg:
“European Central Bank governing council members have agreed on a 20 billion-euro ($27 billion) weekly upper limit for sovereign debt purchases as resistance among members grows, the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported…..
Council members from the Netherlands and Austria have added their voices to skepticism over the bond-purchase program, the newspaper said. Those objecting to buying include Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann, Executive Board member Juergen Stark and Yves Mersch, governor of Luxembourg’s central bank, FAZ said.” (“ECB Backs $27 Billion Weekly Limit on Government Bond Purchases, FAZ Says”, Bloomberg)
The battle between Germany–the largest economy in the eurozone–and the ECB has been brewing for months. Germany is adamantly opposed to any pooling of debts and, thus, will not support eurobonds, fiscal transfers or allowing the ECB to act as lender of last resort. Here’s how the Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann summed it up in a recent interview:
“The eurosystem… must not be a lender of last resort for sovereigns because this would violate Article 123 of the EU treaty [prohibiting monetary financing – or central bank funding of governments]. I cannot see how you can ensure the stability of a monetary union by violating its legal provisions.
I think the prohibition of monetary financing is very important in ensuring the credibility and independence of the central bank, which allow us to deliver on our primary objective of price stability.”
While the German position is principled, it is also impractical. Europe is in crisis, a slow-motion bank run is rapidly turning into a full-blown panic. Policymakers will have to be flexible if they want to avert another Lehman-type meltdown.
In contrast, the ECB position is not only unprincipled but also calculating and cynical. Everyone who’s followed events, knew that the emergency fund (EFSF) would never be ready in time to address the firestorm in the bond markets. That meant that yields would continue to rise (which they did) until the ECB provided some form of backstop. But the ECB delayed its intervention until it had toppled Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and inserted its own agent (Mario Monti) to carry out its diktats. In other words, ECB chief, Mario Draghi, deliberately manipulated bond purchases to effect regime change before thumbing his nose at Germany and doing exactly what he planned to do from the very beginning. For those who still doubt this, take a look at this article by Reuters on Friday:
“The European Central Bank is ready to show some flexibility in its response to the euro zone debt crisis, despite vocal resistance from a German-led group of ECB policymakers to the bank unleashing the overwhelming firepower it can muster….
ECB officials beyond the German-led group are ready to use the bank’s controversial bond-buying program to help lower government borrowing costs if they reach unsustainable levels, as Italy is experiencing….
ECB officials have welcomed the appointment of Mario Monti as Italy’s new prime minister and look forward to his administration delivering austerity measures to restore confidence in Italy’s strained public finances….
Marko Kranjec, chief of Slovenia’s central bank and, like Weidmann, a member of the ECB’s 23-member Governing Council, told Reuters on Saturday Italy’s austerity reforms go in the right direction and the ECB was willing to support sovereign borrowers as long as it does not put price stability at risk.
“We are flexible,” Kranjec said. He declined to comment in detail on the ECB’s bond purchases but said they would go “as far as needed.” (“Analysis: Despite fuss, ECB ready for some crisis flexibility”, Reuters)
“As far as needed”? So the matter had already been decided?
Can you see what’s going on here? Draghi and his banker cohorts never had any intention of following the terms of the treaty. (“No bail outs”) It’s just a big game. They just needed time to bump-off Berlusconi and install their own puppet regime before they went on their bond buying binge. Here’s more from Reuters:
“Euro zone and International Monetary Fund officials have discussed the idea of the European Central Bank lending to the IMF, to provide the fund with sufficient resources for bailing out even the biggest euro zone sovereigns, officials said….
But EU law forbids the ECB to finance government borrowing…..Policymakers have discussed, therefore, how to get the ECB involved in crisis-fighting without endangering its independence. Lending money to the IMF, rather than any euro zone government, could achieve that, officials said…
Article 23 of the ECB statute says that “the ECB may conduct all types of banking transactions in relations with third countries and international organizations, including borrowing and lending operations”.
The IMF could then use the ECB money to finance various rescue operations in the euro zone like bailouts, precautionary credit lines, on its own, or in cooperation with the EFSF.
“It is doable,” a second euro zone official said. Two further euro zone officials said they had heard of the idea.” (“ECB could lend to IMF for euro zone rescue: officials”, Reuters)
Can you believe how dishonest these people are? Treaties mean nothing to them; they’re just an inconvenience that can be brushed aside whenever they choose. And this is the way the eurocrats conduct all their business. Just consider the proposal for the European Stability Mechanism. The ESM is supposed to create a permanent facility that can provide loans to countries that are in distress due to rising yields on sovereign bonds. But the ESM’s real purpose is to establish a supra-national fiscal authority whose directors and staff share absolute “immunity from every form of judicial process.” The ESM is essentially a stealth government with unreviewable power to implement the policies of unelected banksters and bureaucrats.
The ESM creates the legal basis for an EU dictatorship. If the treaty is ratified, the ESM will be able to draw from a pool of $700,000 billion euros to purchase sovereign bonds of struggling countries. But that’s just the beginning, because according to Article 10: “the Board of Governors may decide to change the authorized capital and amend Article 8 accordingly”. In other words, the fund’s managers are free to increase the amount of the fund whenever they like and the individual states are “irrevocably and unconditionally” required to provide the money.
How’s that for democracy?
But what if a country is either unable or unwilling to pay extra money to the ESM?
Well, then, under Article 27, (titled) “Legal Status, privileges and immunities”…”The ESM …shall have full legal capacity to …institute legal proceedings.” So, the ESM has the right to sue the countries for damages for failure to meet the terms of the contract.
On the other hand, neither the ESM nor any of its managers or staff can be sued regardless of the offense. They have complete immunity from action taken by executive, judicial, or legislative branches of government. The treaty essentially repeals all civil and criminal statutes for anyone connected to the fund. Take a look:
Article 27–The ESM, its property, funding and assets shall enjoy immunity from every form of judicial process.
Article 27 (again): The property, funding and assets of the ESM shall…be immune from search, requisition, confiscation, expropriation, or any other form of seizure, taking or foreclosure by executive, judicial, administrative or legislative action.
Article 30: Immunities of persons: 1–Governors, alternate governors, directors, alternate directors, the Manging Director and staff members shall be immune from legal process with respect to acts performed by them …and shall enjoy inviolability in respect to their official papers and documents.
No one working for the ESM can be held accountable for anything regardless of how egregious the crime may be. And all personal and official documentation can be withheld from public review. No transparency whatsoever, complete secrecy.
Naturally, bankers, politicians, and other elites are trying to rush this anti-democratic abomination through the ratification process before the public figures out what’s really in it. They’re promoting the ESM as an essential tool for dealing with potential crises in the future. But, don’t believe it. The fatcats are just setting up for another round of looting.
See the full video–ESM; Treaty of Debt; Stop it Now!
Paul Krassner’s dialogue with Andrew Breitbart appears in the December issue of Playboy. He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion, forthcoming from AK Press.
Hi Bill (Bill Bishop, who will be best man at my wedding),
So wonderful and timely to see you in church today. Thanks for the lift back home, and for listening to my remarkable epiphany.
This is what the Lord has put onto my heart: back to your original idea to stage "events" for membership outreach physically on the grounds of St Paul's, this IS the way to go, if the church council can be sold on the idea of a regularly scheduled, periodic meeting on Sunday afternoons, and the right thing to do is to target other praise band teams in the area, inviting them to put on about 25-30 minute performances, with enough participants to provide about a 3-hour venue (probably open mic is the right way to present it - with the stipulation that each week would be featured performers from various of the local churches) for fellowship, worship, praise, food, coffee, cola, singing, song, and dancing. SOMEBODY has to host the event; it may as well be St Paul's, unless or until someone else steps up to take up the cause (ultimately, a rotating format might be the way to go, if there is enough interest from local churches).
Teen-aged suicide awareness falls quite naturally into this purview (we need to discuss with Paul Tack, who worked many years with my mother at the Jewel Tea Corporation what it is that St. Anne is doing in this regards. To my knowledge, this is the only local church that actively addresses this issue, counseling its children on how to recognize the signs of at-risk-for-suicide youths. To my knowledge this is the only local organization that dares to even whisper the words "teen suicides" in the same breath; the 800-pound gorilla in the living room).
I was so impressed with Jana's acknowledgement of Dark-side Jana today. I had not given her credit for so much self-awareness, although I do believe that if I were to tell her of the five specific instances in which she exposed her evil-spirited bitchy side, and NOT merely to me, she might faint away dead that she had been caught so off guard. But, perhaps, like the recalcitrant child, she recognized that I could be the one to be counted upon for calling her on her bull feathers. I daresay y'all have some boundary issues that make you reluctant to do so, as was discussed at the round table this afternoon.
I'd like you to present the following to Jana and the rest of the leadership crew (star-ship St Paul's UCC, boldly going where no churches have gone before). You'll never get a more sincere, nor more heartfelt, nor better written recommendation than this one (he said, as a statement of fact, which no pride whatsoever; it simply is what it is).
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Saint Paul's United Church of Christ
401 East Main Street
Barrington, Illinois 60010
As kind, generous, non-judgmental, loving, and caring a congregation as you'll ever find, is St. Paul's United Chruch of Christ in Barrington, Illinois. Many of Barrington's foremost and prominent community-serving families have their membership roots grounded here, where Pastor Jana Chwalisz is as a fine a composer and deliverer of sermons as has ever walked the planet. Rene Krupper the very gifted and pragmatic director of music, directs as individually talented a group of musicians as ever you will find, and she uses the various ensembles (Praise Team, Senior Choir, Handbell Choir) in a set rotation so that each ensemble has the opportunity to hear the other two ensembles at least two weeks out of every month.
Although a relatively small congregation (89 families signed pledge offerings for calendar year 2011), their leadership has dared to dream big dreams and will almost undoubtedly grow rapidly over the next five years.
Some of the really nice and things about the Sunday services include:
Large print for the Bulletin;
Their Hymnal is very traditional - they don't update it every 10 years or so, as to the Lutherans, sometimes, or so it seems, for the mere sake of updating the hymnal;
They actively embrace, welcome and nourish gay couples;
They actively embrace, welcome, and nourish peoples of color;
They proudly proclaim the names of the relatives of those who attend that serve in the military;
They proudly fly the American flag;
Each week, as part of the regular devotional service, Pastor Jana asks those assembled to tell of prayers which have been answered, or prayers which are needed for friends / family / loved ones, or even groups of poor and marginalized peoples from all over the globe, and upon collecting all the information, then prays for them leading the congregation in prayer, and then ensures that these people / groups are placed in the following week's church bulletin to ensure at least one more week of on-going prayers for them.
The church had 150 children in their summer vacation Bible school (the word is out - St Paul's does GOOD by your kids);
The elected church council has been dealing with issues few churches see in 100 years these past 12 months and has developed and implemented innovative action plans to deal with the realities of an ongoing (since 1854) but relatively stagnant membership population as thoughtfully, insightfully, and imaginatively creative, willing to learn, willing to grow, willing to change, honest and open as any you will EVER encounter. They also recognize these times of trials and tribulations as an incredible opportunity to sit back and take a very close look at just what it means to be a church; just what the church expects from its pastor; just what the pastor has to offer the church; just what the church needs to do to prosper, GROW, and thrive.
This past year they had to deal with some of the most difficult decisions an established church will ever have to come to grips with and dealt with fundamental questions about just what it was that the church wanted, needed, and expected from its pastoral staff, and what was realistic to ask of said staff. Their response was one that ENRON might well have paid $1,00,000 to a management consulting firm to produce.
If you enter a church service a stranger, you will leave with at least three new and very close, caring friends.
The membership is quite familiar with and sympathetic to the human condition, and they are NOT afraid to tell you when you have done something stupid THAT you have done something stupid, but invariably append, "We love you anyway; we simply had to tell you for your own good because CLEARLY nobody else cares enough about you to tell you these simple (and very obvious) truths."
The UCC is very active in its support to countries around the world. St Paul has sent ministers and congregants to the southern reaches of Mexico where Commandante Marcos and the indigenous Indian peoples are engaged in a struggle to reclaim lands from the wealthies of land-owners for the poor peoples of Southern Mexico.
The church is strongly engaged in local ministries and outreaches to the less fortunate citizens of the area. The church has a sister-church and the two churches engage in joint projects to proclaim and affirm the love of God in their lives.
BEST PART of Sunday worship is the fellowship snacks and coffee afterwards, where virtually every one who attended the service can be found in the fellowship hall sitting or standing, coffee cup in hand, chatting with old friends, or the newest faced visitor (even ones with very bad hair cuts; even ones with hair dyed BLUE!).
I was first drawn to enter the church doors and engage due to the Wednesday afternoon Bible Study (proudly proclaiming “Open to All”), which consisted of lunch, prayer, a round table group of bible-investigators, and another 75-90 minutes of discussion by some VERY knowledgeable ministers (when first I attended one of these, the pastor staff consisted of a Senior Pastor, an Assistant Pastor, and an unpaid Associate Pastor - these three were SO gung ho into the Good Book that they would bring volumes of commentaries on the particular book of the bible being studied and point out matters that might easily escape the eye of one new to Bible study.
I have here only scratched the surface of what this precious gem of a congregation brings bright-shining to a stranger who first enters its doors (all of which but one are locked during the worship service, the better to keep the young Sunday School children safe from those whose intentions are not good) in radiant, loving splendor its church members, and even non-members who regularly attend because once you meet these loving people, they become part of you in a way that is unique. St. Paul's is like a magnet; once you come under its orbit, you are there forever.
Come one; Come all; the words "All Are Welcomed in this Place," were never spoken and written more truer to what is practiced and believed by the denizens of this faith community, and you may rest assured, these words are used on the web page of another protestant church in town, but the senior pastor, the staff, and the congregation DO NOT PUT INTO PRACTICE these words: Citing just two examples, the senior pastor prohibted entrance into the church a 47-year member who had been confirmed there; for over one year, a black woman attended the services and spoke with great length with the then senior pastor (no longer at the local, Barrington church, of her saddness that not once did any member invite her into their homes from coffee, or lunch, and this, she really could not understand, because they all seemed to kind and loving in the Narthex (she also commanded that the senior pastor not tell anyone of what she had told him, and, he quite wrongly to my mind, did as she had requested – sometimes it is far more cruel to be kind; sometimes we must make promises and tell lies we have no intention of keeping).
God Bless You, St Paul's United Church of Christ of Barrington, Illinois - you have been better to me and more caring for me than my own family, than my original Barrington Church where I was at one time or another actively involved in 14 different ministries; more accepting and less judgmental of me than most of my so-called "closest" friends; you fear me not nor do you fear to call me on my stupidity (or pride, or vanity) because you LOVE me enough to risk making me angry, were I not aware that you do these things only out of loving concern, and that your loving concern is well placed and based on the experience of many years of trials and tribulations which virtually every human being will encounter at one time of crisis or another in their lives.
May the peace of the Lord God almighty reside within you, and within your households, and within the lives of all the people and creatures you love, these things I ask, heavenly Father, in the name of your Beloved Son, Jesus the carpenter, fisher, teacher, healer, teller of stories, rabbi, teacher, saviour, if it be Thy Will, AMEN.
With LOVE to you, and ALL You LOVE,
Mark Raymond Ganzer
