Scott Horton Interviews Noam Chomsky

www.antiwar.com

Noam Chomsky, author of Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, discusses the roots of U.S. imperialism, the often overlooked opportunity costs of empire, the exaggerated strength of U.S. economic rivals, the continuation of the Great Game into the 21st century, how the Western World’s observance of the Durand Line exacerbates problems in Afghanistan, the empire’s loss in Iraq, the U.S. doctrine of punishing Iran just to make an example out of them and the Israeli policy of incremental displacement of the Palestinian population in the occupied territories.

MP3 here. (41:12)

Noam Chomsky is professor emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and widely regarded as the father of modern linguistics. He is the author of Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy, Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies and dozens of other books on politics and linguistics.

March 3, 2009: Sometimes I sit up in the darkness

Ilargi: President Obama must be starting to sweat, maybe hyperventilate and perhaps even panic. In a move that is prone to kill a political career if it turns out wrong (and it will), he suggested today that this may be a good time for Americans to buy stocks. Now, I don't care if he really thinks that or not, the fact remains that it's a highly risky and volatile thing for a politician to say. It feels like he's moving ever closer into W territory, it sounds like something that Bush 43 would have said, like when 8 years ago he urged Americans to go out and buy a home. Where's the difference?

President Obama also insisted that he's convinced the economy will rebound. And while there will of course be some kind of bounce somewhere down the road, no matter how small, what exactly will be the good that comes from it when it happens with the Dow at 1000? I know, that's probably not what the president thinks. Or hopes for.

Read on...

Peacenik contemplated the state of the present on the bus trip to work this morning. It screamed normal. Peacenik went to the Borealis, a new, upscale, southend restaurant, for dinner on Saturday. It was full. The local pub, the Wooly, continues to be busy. Peacenik got tickets to a soldout concert at Folkway Music for Friday. There doesn't seem to be an increase in the number of street people on the streets of Guelph. The grocery store and Canadian Tire seemed busy. BCE showed some confidence in the mall-based economy and bought the Source. The city of Guelph reached a tentative agreement with its outside and library workers. Punditman continues to work hard and play hard. Life seems good.

But. But there are some signs of a disturbance in the state of the present. There are a lot of real estate listings in the Guelph Mercury. The Kitchener employment insurance office is apparently very busy. There are no wait times in the ski lift lines at Chicopee Mountain. There seems to be a paper towel and toilet paper price war going on in the local grocery stores. GM sales were down more than 50%. The median price of a house in Detroit is $7500. Can southwestern Ontario become like upstate Michigan? Can Guelph become Detroit? The Toronto Star this morning front paged a story about 1500 Canadian steelworkers losing their jobs.

Then Peacenik turned Peacenik's thoughts to Ilargi. Ah, Ilargi. The name that strikes fear into sentinent humans. Ilargi, the scary one. If your state of mind is dependent on psychotropic drugs, or if you are in a fragile state of mind, or if you are fearful of tomorrow, do not follow the link. Do not read Ilargil. Life seems good. But after reading Ilargi, Peacenik wonders how much longer life will seem so good.

Clinton: US Doesn’t Expect Diplomacy to Work With Iran

Iran Again Insists Charges About Nuclear Program Are Baseless

www.antiwar.com

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says she has serious doubts that Iran would respond to the Obama Administration’s interest to engage in diplomacy on its nuclear program, and that “our eyes are wide open on Iran.”

Secretary Clinton apparently did not believe that the Iranian President’s remarks during last month’s 30th anniversary of the Iranian revolution celebration that his nation was ready to talk with the United States constituted a response. Nor apparently did the numerous other times since President Obama’s elections in which the Iranian government spoke of its eagerness to improve relations.

But Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hassan Ghashghavi again told reporters that the repeated US claims that his government was attempting to make a nuclear weapon were “baseless remarks, even from the technical viewpoint, and just for political propaganda.”

The spokesman pointed to the fact that the latest accusations, made by Admiral Mullen, were immediately contradicted by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, adding that his government is neither capable nor willing to begin enriching uranium to the levels necessary to make nuclear weapons. The IAEA has repeatedly confirmed that the uranium enriched so far to only the low levels needed for its upcoming nuclear power plant has not been diverted to any other use.

punditman says...This type of rhetoric does not bode well. Let's hope that it is just posturing by the Obama/Clinton team and that they are actually seriously pursuing back channel contacts with Iran. The problem with this issue is that the level of propaganda is immense. Let's hope that it is mostly propaganda and that an Israeli-US/Iran showdown doesn't plunge the world into the abyss.

Beginning Now: The Panic Phase of the Collapse

by Martin D. Weiss, Ph.D. 03-02-09

If you missed our latest video, “The 11 Laws of Bear Market Success,” or you want to watch it again, click here now for the recording.
The timing couldn’t be better. Indeed …

Just as the Obama Administration launches a triple tirade of new initiatives — a record stimulus package, a bigger round of rescues, and the largest deficit financing of all time …

Just as the Treasury Department doubles down on its bailouts for sinking giants — Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG, General Motors, Chrysler, and Citigroup …

Read on...

Peacenik watched CNBC when he got home from work yesterday. Peacenik could see the panic in the faces of the pundits and their guests. Jim Cramer was sorrowful. Even Larry Kudlow was having a hard time pretending to be optimistic. But the crazy thing was that everyone was blaming Obama. It was like 30 years of neo-conservative malfeasance didn't happen. Peacenik isn't sure why such unbalanced, unfair and dishonest TV coverage is allowed. It was a 3-hour commerical for neo-con wingnuts.

Peacenik thinks maybe it is time to bring back the "fairness" doctrine. Peacenik thinks it is time for a whole new crop of pundits. Oh, and this morning: Toyota needs a bailout. And GE had to cut its dividend. And pension plans are crashing. Will the markets bounce back today? If investors read and believe the front page of the Globe and Mail today, "It's Not All Dooom and Gloom", then the market might rebound. Peacenik doesn't believe the front page of the Globe and Mail.

Welcome To Obama’s War

by Eric Margolis

As Santayana observed, those who forget history are doomed to relive it. However overused, his maxim is as true today as when he made it.

On 15 February, 1989, the 40th Soviet Army pulled out of Afghanistan, marking the end of Moscow’s bloody and disastrous occupation. Its able commander, Gen. Boris Gromov, was the last Soviet solider to leave Afghanistan, leading his men over a bridge spanning the Amu Darya River (Oxus, in Greek) – which Alexander the Great had crossed on his ill-fated invasion of Afghanistan (327–325 BC).

In a decade of savage fighting, the Red Army and its Afghan Communist allies killed at least 1.5 million Afghans and drove 2.5 million into exile in Pakistan and Iran.

The new Soviet chairman, Mikhail Gorbachev, determined the Afghan war, that was begun by his dimwitted predecessor, Leonid Brezhnev, and a cabal of party and KGB hardliners, could not be won.

Fortunately for the world, Gorbachev, proved a leader of profound humanity, decency, and intellect. Gorbachev courageously accepted defeat and brought his soldiers home. Soon after, the Soviet Union, a bankrupt empire held together by fear and repression, began to crumble. To his eternal credit, Gorbachev refused to employ force to hold the Soviet Empire together.

Many Russians detest Gorbachev to this day, blaming him for the end of the Soviet Union. But using the Red Army to crush rebellion in the Baltic republics and East Germany could easily have ignited World War III. The world owes Gorbachev an enormous debt for averting this horror. He put humanism ahead of nationalism and imperialism.

The new president of the bankrupt American imperium should heed Gorbachev’s wisdom. Barack Obama’s inauguration offered a perfect opportunity to pause the US-led Afghan War, and open talks with Afghan groups resisting foreign occupation (both the Soviets and US branded them "terrorists"). Instead, Obama vowed to intensify the eight-year war which has so far cost the US $ 62 billion.

Keep Reading...

punditman says...

President Obama is a smart guy, or so we thought. Surely he knows that the Taliban did not attack the US on 9-11; surely he knows the plot was hatched in Germany and Spain, allegedly by Saudis and Pakistanis.
How long before Obama learns that all his own assumptions were wrong and that the Afghanistan catastrophe has no military solution? Even Stephen Harper apparently now knows this. Unfortunately, many stand to die while the President gets up to speed.

PS: maybe he should call up Gorbachev for some tutoring?

Civil Liberties under the Obama administration

punditman says...
I think it is safe to say that there was not only the hope—but also the assumption—that Obama would go about overturning eight years of Bush administration illegality.

Yet as Glen Greenwald, American Constitutional and civil rights litigator and Salon.com columnist says, the Obama Department of Justice is:

...not merely trying desperately to keep the Bush administration's spying activities secret, and not merely devoting itself with full force to preventing disclosure of relevant documents concerning this illegal program, but far worse, doing everything in its power even to prevent any judicial adjudication as to whether the Bush administration broke the law by spying on Americans without warrants.

Indeed, it is starting to very much to look like business as usual in Washington on the Constitutional front.

Greenwald spoke recently at the annual conference of the ACLU of Massachusetts regarding impediments to the restoration of civil liberties under the Obama administration. When you have half an hour, take the time to listen. It may change some of your assumptions:

MP3 here

A.I.G. Reports $61.7 Billion Loss as U.S. Gives More Aid

By ANDREW ROSS SORKIN and MARY WILLIAMS WALSH
Published: March 2, 2009

The federal government agreed Monday morning to provide an additional $30 billion in taxpayer money to the American International Group and loosen the terms of its huge loan to the insurer, even as the insurance giant reported a$61.7 billion loss, the biggest quarterly loss in history.

The loss of $22.95 a share compared with a fourth-quarter loss in the period a year ago of $5.3 billion or $2.08 a share. For the year, A.I.G. lost $99.3 billion or $37.84 a share, compared with a profit of $6.2 billion or $2.39 a share for 2007.

Read on...

When Peacenik got up this morning and turned on the news, the news was all about the markets in Hong Kong and Tokyo being down. And the Dow futures were down too. Then at 6 a.m. comes the news that A.I.G. lost $61.7 billion in three months. And the U.S. gov't is going to give A.I.G. another $30 Billion. Do you think Peacenik likes all these numbers early in the morning. Peacenik can barely remember when to use question marks this early in the morning. But, Peacenik thinks something is happening. Oh yeah, the Bank of Canada is talking about "quantitative easing." Peacenik thinks that means "printing money" to inflate your way out of debt.

Nothing is working. The global stimulus plans are having no effect. Giving taxpayer money to insolvent companies is having no effect. Confidence is shot. Trust is shot. Yes dear readers, the black hole is hungry this morning. Insatiably hungry. Other than that it looks like a nice day.

Stonewalling in Style: Bank of America Subpoenaed

NY Attorney General Says Ken Lewis Refuses to Say Who Got Bonuses

By RICHARD ESPOSITO and JOANNA JENNINGSFeb. 27, 2009

In just one day, the president of Bank of America, Ken Lewis, managed to defy both President Barack Obama and New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.

On Thursday, Lewis refused to provide a list of bonus payments to the New York Attorney General, after arriving in New York in his $50 million corporate jet. Earlier this week, President Obama said the days of bank executives flying corporate jets "were over." Not for Bank of America.

Read on...

Peacenik isn't going to feign outrage or anger. The Bank of America is insolvent. Bankrupt. Zombified. The BofA has accepted billions of taxpayer dollars so that it can pretend to be an ongoing concern. If anyone could figure out how to deal with the fallout from a bankrupt BofA, the lights would be out already.

Peacenik has to go back and read about the behaviour of the rich during the Russian revolution or the French revolution. Could they possibly have been as out of touch with reality as Ken Lewis is today? He doesn't get it. The public, with pitchforks, will be storming the BofA and Ken Lewis will be on the phone to the caterers complaining that the soup was cold. No, Peacenik isn't angry at Ken Lewis. Peacenik thinks this is all part of an inevitable conflagration. And everyone is playing their role to perfection.

James Galbraith: Obama Isn't Doing Enough to Solve the Financial Crisis

By Nick Baumann, MotherJones.com. Posted February 27, 2009.

There are six things Obama needs to fix as we approach "a long, profound, painful process of change."

The financial crisis is even worse than people think (and people already think it's pretty bad), and we aren't doing enough to stop it, economist and Mother Jones contributor James K. Galbraith told the House Financial Services Committee on Thursday morning. From his prepared testimony:

In 1930, John Maynard Keynes wrote, "The world has been slow to realize that we are living this year in the shadow of one of the greatest economic catastrophes of modern history." That catastrophe was the Great Crash of 1929, the collapse of money values, the destruction of the banking system. The questions before us today are: is the crisis we are living through similar? And if so, are we taking adequate steps to deal with it? I believe the answers are substantially yes, and substantially no.

Galbraith pointed to six significant problems with the Obama administration's response to the financial crisis. First, he said, the White House is being way too optimistic:

Read on...

Peacenik looked and looked and looked and looked for some good news to head into the weekend. Peacenik found the Leaf score. Toronto 5, N.Y. Islanders 4. Other than that it is all bad. Bad foreign policy. Bad economic policy. Bad judicial policy. And the wingnuts are still dominating the airwaves and framing the debate. How Newt Gingrich or Karl Rove get on tv is beyond Peacenik. This article by Galbraith echos the comments of some of the now popular doomers. The status quo is not coming back. Business as usual is not coming back. A consumer driven economy is not coming back. Obama probably know this. If he tells the truth will that make things worse? Peacenik doesn't think maintaining the illusion is helpful at this point. Time for reality. Have a good weekend.

Very Bad News: Afghanistan's Bagram Air Base Will Be Obama's Guantanamo

By Stephen Foley, Independent UK. Posted February 22, 2009.

The Afghan air base is to undergo a $60 million expansion, allowing it to hold five times as many prisoners as remain at Gitmo.

Less than a month after signing an executive order to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, President Barack Obama has quietly agreed to keep denying the right to trial to hundreds more terror suspects held at a makeshift camp in Afghanistan that human rights lawyers have dubbed "Obama's Guantanamo."

In a single-sentence answer filed with a Washington court, the administration dashed hopes that it would immediately rip up Bush-era policies that have kept more than 600 prisoners in legal limbo and in rudimentary conditions at the Bagram air base, north of Kabul.

Read on...

While Peacenik watches the world economy crumble, Peacenik also unfortunately is watching Obama adopt more and more of Bush's policies. Obama gets props for saying he will close Guantanamo, then he blythly turns Bagram air base into a new Guantanamo. And remember, no one really knows who the enemy is in Afghanistan. The enemy is anyone unlucky enough to get picked up by the U.S. or its allies, which unfortunately includes Canada. Is due process being followed? What kind of interrogations are taking place at Bagram? Afghanistan is a quagmire. It is time for Canada to bring the troops home.