This Can't Be Happening!

I was shocked to find myself in almost perfect agreement today with a recent column by the neoconservative pundit Charles Krauthammer.

Usually Krauthammer has me groaning, but yesterday his column nailed it.

He was writing about what he correctly observes as the end of “American hegemony” in the global political sphere.

As Krauthammer lays this “grim” picture out, six years of President Obama’s weak-kneed foreign policy, “compounded by” his “proposed massive cuts in defense spending, down (sic) to pre-Pearl Harbor levels,” have allowed a revanchist Russia and a newly aggressive China to make “an open challenge to the post-Cold War, US-dominated world that Obama inherited and then weakened beyond imagining.”

Krauthammer cites as his main evidence of this “major alternation in the global balance of power” the deal just struck between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping, who, during a visit to Shanghai last week by the Russian leader, inked an agreement for Russia to sell some $400 billion worth of its natural gas to China over the next 30 years. The deal would include the building of a $70-billion pipeline from Russian gas fields in Siberia to China’s industrial heartland, and would “deflate” a threat made by the US and Europe during the current Ukrainian crisis to end Europe’s reliance on Russian gas.

Krauthammer also pointed to President Xi’s call for a new Asian region security system that would link China, Russia and (gasp) Iran — an arrangement which, if implemented, he warns could “mark the end of a quarter-century of unipolarity and … herald a return to a form of bipolarity — two global coalitions: one free, one not — though with communism dead, not as structurally rigid or ideologically dangerous as Cold War bipolarity. Not a fight to the finish, but a struggle nonetheless — for dominion and domination.”

Setting aside Krauthammer’s breathless horror at this new “bi-polar” global political environment, and his ideologically-blinded description of the US/NATO “side” as “free” as opposed to the Russia/China “side’s” being “not free” (and adding the observation that actually a $400-billion deal over 30 years is really not that big a thing, working out to just over $13 billion a year), there is much here that does accurately portray what is happening.

Missing from Krauthammer’s analysis, typically, is the history behind this development.
Neocon columnist Charles Krauthammer sees America's decline in new pacts between China's Xi Jinping and Russia's Vladimir Putin
 

 
I don’t believe in the dogmatic postulates of Marxist revolution. I don’t accept that we are living in a period of proletarian revolutions. Reality is telling us that every day. But if I am told that because of that reality you can’t do anything to help the poor, then I say, “We part company.”
                            -Hugo Chavez, 2004
 
The hypocrisy of the government of the United States seems to know no limits. The current posture it’s taking toward the elected government of Venezuela is simply shameful.

Secretary of State John Kerry and two powerful US Senators are threatening economic sanctions unless the duly elected Venezuelan government changes its tune in on-going talks between itself and a collection of disgruntled right-wing parties and business elements. The headline in the New York Times reads: “Kerry Calls on Venezuela To Talk with Opposition.” What it should have read was: “Kerry Threatens Venezuela With Sanctions: Do It Our Way, Or Else.”

The headline misleads because talks are already in process mediated by representatives from Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and the Roman Catholic Church. Venezuela is talking; the opposition just hasn’t gotten what it or the US wants — hence the threats. Encouraging fair diplomatic talks is a good thing; but threats of an economic attack? The hypocrisy is laughable.

Secretary of State John Kerry, Hugo Chavez and President Nicolas Maduro

Can you imagine John Kerry threatening Israel with economic sanctions if it did not “demonstrate good-faith actions” or “honor the dialogue process” or “restore the civil liberties of [Palestinian] leaders who have been unjustly imprisoned.” Kerry’s Israel/Palestine diplomacy crashed and burned last month, and as most of the world knows, the Israeli decision to pursue new West Bank settlements in the midst of the talks had a lot to do with their demise. The Israelis failed miserably at “good faith actions.” So why not economic sanctions against Israel? You gotta be kidding.

The American right will say such a comparison is preposterous because Palestinians represent a different case from the opposition elements in Venezuela. And, of course, that’s true. They are different: Palestinians are a poor, beaten-down people with zero clout in the halls of the US government, while the Venezuelan opposition includes the wealthiest, most comfortable and fat-cat Venezuelans who have a direct line into the office suites of the US government, especially the State and Defense Departments.

The Justice Department is really pumping out the pointless prosecutions these days.

First it was an absurd indictment of five Chinese military computer hackers who are charged with hacking into some major US companies to steal trade secrets — notably about nuclear power technology and solar energy. Then it was a negotiated settlement with Credit Suisse, one of the world’s big global banking enterprises, based in this case in Switzerland, in which the bank agreed to plead guilty to criminally aiding and abetting some 20,000 US taxpayers in avoiding US taxes over a period of decades.

At first blush, these might sound like big deals, but if you think about it, they are both meaningless gestures designed to make the US public think the Justice Department is doing something.

In the China hacking case, you have China’s military doing exactly what the US military, in the form of the National Security Agency, has been caught doing — hacking into corporate computer systems to steal not just trade secrets, but also to gain an inside track on trade negotiations. And of course, we have already learned that the NSA has done even more nefarious things, like intercepting computers and switching equipment during shipment, before they are delivered to customers abroad, with NSA staff inserting bugs and malware thus rendering that equipment an open book to NSA snoops.

Besides the sheer absurdity of the US, of all countries — the world’s major abuser of the Internet — indicting China for engaging in some relatively small way in exactly what the US has been caught doing on a grand scale, there’s the question of just why this alleged Chinese spying on American companies is seen as so egregious, while the NSA’s much more invasive spying on the American people is seen as no big deal at all.

Oh yeah., I forgot: This is all about profits and capitalism. What has the US Justice Department all in a lather about this Chinese spying on US corporations isn’t national security, and it isn’t violation of privacy. It’s the violation of “property rights” — specifically corporate property rights.

US AG Eric Holder has a hands-off attitude towards seriously prosecuting US bankers, US war criminals, or 1st Amendment rights abuses
 

Part II of Dave Lindorff’s interview by Kathy Swift on Santa Barbara’s RadioOccupy. Lindorff continues talking about his investigation into the FBI’s and Homeland Security Department’s hidden campaign to crush the Occupy Movement, based upon the thousands of documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act campaign of discovery by the Partnership for Civil Justice. Lindorff also talks about his investigation into the men from Craft International, the Dallas-based mercenary firm who’s personnel appear to have been hired (by someone — likely the DHS) to be at the Boston Marathon a year ago.

To hear this program, please go to RadioOccupy

From left: Three Craft International guys at finish line before bombings (note backpack with white square and hat in lower corner with Craft’s scull logo), two Craft men communicating with someone, FBI image of exploded backpack (note similar black color and white squre marking), and craft guys running after bombing (without his pack!). Clearly there are some explanations needed from the government, but nobody will admit to hiring Craft to be present at last year’s Boston Marathon.

If you would like to hear Part I of this radio interview, which focuses on Lindorff’s investigation into a plot, revealed in several FBI secret documents obtained through FOUA, to assassinate the “leaders” of the Houston Occupy movement and possibly other Occupy actions around the country, please click here

Occupy activist Cecily McMillan, convicted on May 5 of second-degree felony assault of a New York cop whom she and witnesses claimed had grabbed her breast from behind, bruising it, stood her ground before her sentence was rendered, refusing the judge’s insistence that she should “take responsibility for her conduct.”

Risking the possibility that Judge Ronald Zwiebel might sentence her to the maximum seven years for the charge she was convicted of, McMillan would only apologize for what she termed “the accident” of involuntarily throwing back her elbow when grabbed by behind from someone she could not even see (the cop was also in plainclothes, so even if she had seen him she would have been justified in protecting herself). Insisting to the judge that she lived in accordance to the “law of love,” she said, in her pre-sentencing statement, “Violence is not permitted. This being the law that I live by, I can say with certainty that I am innocent of the crime I have been convicted of… I cannot confess to a crime that I did not commit. I cannot throw away my dignity in return for my freedom.”

It was a bold and risky stand for the 25-year-old New School for Social Research graduate student to take, given the high sentencing stakes. In the end, though, the judge, — who during the trial had blocked her defense from presenting key evidence that she had acted in her own defense against being groped by a cop (for example the police officer’s record of brutality and corruption), while allowing the prosecution to present evidence and statements normally not considered permissible in a trial (such as presenting to the jury evidence about an arrest of McMillan that had not yet been tried or adjudicated) — sentenced her to only a short term in jail.

She still has a five-year felony probationary sentence, which leaves her a convicted felon, a serious impediment to employment, and one that could leave her subject to limitations on her freedom of movement for five years.

McMillan’s many supporters nonetheless hailed the short sentence, which could see her released in as little as 60 days, as a victory, one which many attributed to the massive outpouring of support she has received since her arrest, during her trial, and since especially since her conviction. That support has included a jailhouse visit by two members of Pussy Riot, who condemned her conviction and jailing, a letter of of support from the president of the New School, support from five members of the New York City Council (but so far not a word from New York City’s supposedly leftist and former activist Mayor Bill De Blasio), an online petition signed by over 167,000 people, and an unusual letter from nine of the 12 jurors in her case calling on the judge not to sentence her to any jail time.

Image of Cecily McMillan being arrested as the NYPD clears Zuccotti Park during a six-month memorial celebration of the Occupy Movement in March 2012
 

In this edition of Progressive Radio Network’s “ThisCantBeHappening” radio program, host Dave Lindorff, focuses on the case of Occupy Movement activist Cecily McMillan, currently jailed at Riker’s Island without bail while awaiting sentencing on a conviction of felony assault of a police officer.

With a sentencing hearing set for next Tuesday which could result in a jail term of up to seven years, Lindorff discusses this case with McMillan’s attorney, Martin Stolar, and Lucy Parks, a member of her support team at JusticeforCecily.com. Stolar explains how the New York state judge hearing the case prevented McMillan’s defense from making their case to the jury that she had not assaulted police officer, but had in fact been the victim of assault when the officer grabbed her right breast from behind her, causing her instinctively to throw up her arms, hitting him in the eye with an elbow.

Both Stolar and Parks say the heavy charge of assault against a police officer leveled against McMillan by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr.,, and the Judge’s blatantly prejudicial handling of the case, including his refusal to grant bail pending the sentencing hearing, demonstrate that it’s really all about sending a message that protest in New York City, especially against the banking industry, won’t be tolerated.

To hear a podcast of this program, which aired on PRN.fm on May 14, click here or on the photo of Cecily McMillan below.

Jailed Occupy activist Cecily McMillan, convicted in a biased courtroom of assault on a police officer, faces a possible 7-year sentence at a hearing this coming Tuesday. For information on attending and protesting this travesty of justice, go to JusticeforCecily.com

Almost a year after an FBI agent shot and killed, under suspicious circumstances, a crucial witness in the Boston Marathon bombing case during what initially appeared to be a botched midnight interrogation in an Orlando apartment, serious questions are being raised about the FBI agent who fired seven shots into Chechen immigrant Ibragim Todashev last May 22, and about what the FBI is really up to on this case.

Two investigations, one by the FBI itself and one by the Florida Attorney General’s office, exonerated the FBI in the shooting death, claiming the agent, never identified, had been acting in self-defense, when Todashev allegedly ran at him with a raised broom handle.

Now, an examination of information in incautiously censored documents provided by the FBI to Florida investigators looking into the killing have made it possible to break through FBI secrecy and learn the identity of the agent. It is 41-year-old Aaron McFarlane, who joined the Bureau in 2008 after retiring on a $52,000 lifetime annual disability pension from a short stint as an officer in the Oakland Police Department.

Aside from the question of why someone who passed through the rigorous training program the FBI runs for its recruits at Quantico, VA would also qualify for a lucrative disability pension (allegedly attributed to a foot injury on the job), it turns out that McFarlane also has a pretty checkered past at Oakland’s Police Department — a police department that has such an extraordinary record of corruption and brutality, that since 2012 it has been operated under the supervision of a federal court “compliance director,” whose job is to see that officers don’t brutalize residents or violate their civil rights.

McFarlane apparently did more than that as an Oakland cop. A report published on May 5 by criminologist B Blake discloses that during his four years with the Oakland Police, Todashev’s G-man inquisitor and killer was the subject of two police brutality lawsuits and four internal affairs investigations. Blake also discloses that McFarlane, as a defense witness in a corruption trial, pleaded the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination in refusing to answer questions from the prosecutor in that case, which involved officers .

As the FCC hurtles towards what seems like an approval this coming Thursday of new proposed rules that would, effectively, allow establishment of a second high-speed, higher-cost Internet, we’ve caught a glimpse of an interesting and infrequently noted split in the circles of power.

It’s a minor scuffle but, if it continues, it could open up debates that would involve genuine free-Internet forces and that would quickly put the need to protect the Internet on the national agenda.

Free Press's Take on the Net Neutrality Debate
 

More than a hundred companies, led by giants like Google and Amazon, have written a letter asking the FCC to put the breaks on its new proposal package, revealed last month by FCC Chairman (and former industry lobbyist) Tom Wheeler (a former cable industry lobbyist) that would effectively allow access providers (the people who supply your connection — like Comcast) to establish fast lane Internet service for some content providers (people with websites) and charge them for it.

The package, once approved by the FCC, doesn’t become law automatically. It would go to “public review” for a year or so before the Commission takes final action. That review process seldom ends in any but the most cosmetic changes but the recent outcry about the rules draws the kind of publicity that could morph into a public debate. That could get very messy for the FCC and for the big corporations.

The proposal itself, as TCBH reported, is an atrocity: a cynical, destructive maiming of the structure and purpose of the Internet which was, after all, invented to allow democratic and equal communications. The FCC’s fast lane proposal rips that to shreds and a coalition of progressive and free Internet organizations has been organizing a relentless campaign against it. They are calling for a rally outside FCC headquarters Thursday to demand that the Commission not pass the new rules.

The companies — Amazon, eBay, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Netflix, Twitter, and Yahoo and over a hundred others — are mouthing rhetoric that sounds like the free Internet movement’s slogans but their motivation is very different. This is about the capitalist common denominator: money. Simply put, Comcast wants people like Google to pay it for faster service and people like Google don’t want to pay…not just yet anyway.

The rot at the core of US international affairs, domestic politics and the corporate media is evident in the American approach to the Ukraine crisis.

Just look at the freak-out from all quarters as the people of the eastern part of that country conduct, under conditions of attack and violence fomented by military units sent in by the Kiev putsch government, a peaceful plebiscite asking people to give their view as to whether they want some kind of sovereignty separating them from western Ukraine.

The official US State Department position on the balloting in Dohansk and Luhansk is that this voting effort was “illegal” and “an attempt to create further division and disorder.”

“The United States will not recognize the results of these illegal referenda,” said State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki.

The White House called the voting “illegitimate” and “illegal.”

The US has not once called the violent coup that overthrew Ukraine’s elected government illegitimate or illegal.

Indeed any violence during the voting, which appeared to actually be celebratory, came from Ukrainian troops. Even the Associated Press, which has largely been parroting the US line on separatists in eastern Ukraine, wrote:

“Although the voting in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions appeared mostly peaceful, armed men identified as members of the Ukrainian national guard opened fire on a crowd outside a town hall in Krasnoarmeisk, and an official with the region’s insurgents said people were killed. It was not clear how many.” (Actually the reporter on this story wrote that he saw the shooting, and witnessed two dead bodies as a result, so AP didn’t have to weaken the story’s authority by attributing it to “officials with the region’s insurgents+ — the latter an odd term to give to armed people working, clearly has the support of the communities, to defend them from attack by armed, uniformed thugs sent in from the Kiev regime to disrupt and kill people.)

The US corporate media have largely toed the official line, referring to the separatists in eastern Ukraine as violent when they have been in reality surprisingly restrained in the face of overt violence by military forces dispatched by Kiev. And they never mention the balloting in the east without also mentioning that the US believes that Russia is behind that effort, though in fact Russia’s leader, Vladimir Putin actually angered and annoyed separatists by calling on them — unsuccessfully — to delay their voting plan. (Even that arch cold-warrior and war criminal Henry Kissinger has told CNN that it “makes no sense” to claim Putin is behind the unrest and the separatist movement in western Ukraine.)

But let’s analyze that position calling the voting “illegal.”

America has a bloody history of favoring guns over ballots when it comes to self-determination
 

 
    Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
    Everybody knows that the captain lied …
    Everybody knows the deal is rotten
    Old Black Joe’s still pickin’ cotton
    For your ribbons and bows
            - Leonard Cohen
 

In honor of our Supreme Court I’ve decided to start this piece with a prayer.

Great Spirit of our imagination, have mercy on us stupid, hypocritical bipeds, especially those exceptional examples in black robes who decide whether an armed police officer can strip-search us in public or whether a one-hundred dollar bill has a conscience. Do all you can, Mighty Great One, to allow at least a little light and compassion into the hidden, dark recesses of their august institution.

Amen.

Now we can get on with this humble, scribbled note from underground.

Considering his appointment history in conjunction with his opinions and voting record concerning affirmative action, if Clarence Thomas had any sense of human decency … No wait a minute. … Given the facts of his career, if Clarence Thomas had any honor, a backbone or a pair of independent-minded balls, he’d stop whining about affirmative action and resign.

The scene of the crime: Barbara and George Bush; Clarence and Virginia Thomas and Justice Byron White
 

The Supreme Court’s recent banning of affirmative action in a case from Michigan should remind everyone how really offensive the Thomas appointment was and how it smells worse as time goes by. Thomas notoriously sits among his eight colleagues and does not ask questions, which suggests he lacks the intellectual confidence to swim with the big fish on the court. On top of that, he’s a virtual intellectual drone of Antonin Scalia. According to a recent study on Supreme Court justices and political bias, Thomas is the most conservative justice on the court — even more so than his master Scalia. In an insightful article called “The Last Confederate Is Clarence Thomas”, attorney Charles Pierce describes Thomas’ legal philosophy as a bizarre retrograde advocacy of States Rights over the US Constitution reminiscent of pre-Civil War times. Thomas is, he writes, a “staggering political and historical contradiction. He is the last, and the truest, descendant of John C. Calhoun.”

(I realize the use of the word “master” for Justice Scalia may bother some. For example, I can hear Sean Hannity fulminating how it’s “racist” to use plantation terminology. The fact is, unlike Hannity and friends, I don’t speak in dog whistle language and prefer a French horn.)

The reason Thomas should resign is simple: He consistently argues and votes against affirmative action while he is arguably one of the most flagrant and, certainly, the most controversial, case of affirmative action in American history. Thomas decrying affirmative action is like Macbeth opposing murder.