http://informationclearinghouse.info/57802.htm
Kleptocracy USA
In 2010, I wrote an article for TomDispatch using a word that’s rarely applied to the United States: kleptocracy.
Using the magic of the Internet, Nancy Pelosi’s net worth is currently $165 million. Mitch McConnell is a relative piker at $95 million, though much of that seems to have come from a family inheritance. Hillary Clinton infamously received $675,000 for three speeches to Goldman Sachs; her net worth is currently about $120 million. Just about every politician in the DC area (there must be a few exceptions, right?) cashes in, whether in or out of office. Those few who don’t, I imagine, are considered to be saps, suckers, and losers to the many who do enrich themselves.
I’ve read more than a few U.S. government officials complaining about kleptocracy in places like Afghanistan and Iraq while under U.S. occupation and also now Ukraine as that country is flooded with U.S. dollars in the name of freedom and democracy. As I asked back in 2010, shouldn’t we be flattered as other peoples imitate what America is really all about: making and taking money without regard to any “rules-based order”?
Anyhow, here's my article from 2010, unchanged.
Kleptocracy—now, there’s a word I was taught to associate with corrupt and exploitative governments that steal ruthlessly and relentlessly from the people. It’s a word, in fact, that’s usually applied to flawed or failed governments in Africa, Latin America, or the nether regions of Asia. Such governments are typically led by autocratic strong men who shower themselves and their cronies with all the fruits of extracted wealth, whether stolen from the people or squeezed from their country’s natural resources. It’s not a word you’re likely to see associated with a mature republic like the United States led by disinterested public servants and regulated by more-or-less transparent principles and processes.
In fact, when Americans today wish to critique or condemn their government, the typical epithets used are “socialism” or “fascism.” When my conservative friends are upset, they send me emails with links to material about “ObamaCare” and the like. These generally warn of a future socialist takeover of the private realm by an intrusive, power-hungry government. When my progressive friends are upset, they send me emails with links pointing to an incipient fascist takeover of our public and private realms, led by that same intrusive, power-hungry government (and, I admit it, I’m hardly innocent when it comes to such “what if” scenarios).
What if, however, instead of looking at where our government might be headed, we took a closer look at where we are—at the power-brokers who run or influence our government, at those who are profiting and prospering from it? These are, after all, the “winners” in our American world in terms of the power they wield and the wealth they acquire. And shouldn’t we be looking as well at those Americans who are losing—their jobs, their money, their homes, their healthcare, their access to a better way of life—and asking why?
If we were to take an honest look at America’s blasted landscape of “losers” and the far shinier, spiffier world of “winners,” we’d have to admit that it wasn’t signs of onrushing socialism or fascism that stood out, but of staggeringly self-aggrandizing greed and theft right in the here and now. We’d notice our public coffers being emptied to benefit major corporations and financial institutions working in close alliance with, and passing onremarkable sums of money to, the representatives of “the people.” We’d see, in a word, kleptocracy on a scale to dazzle. We would suddenly see an almost magical disappearing act being performed, largely without comment, right before our eyes.
Of Red Herrings and Missing Pallets of Money
Think of socialism and fascism as the red herrings of this moment or, if you’re an old time movie fan, as Hitchcockian MacGuffins—in other words, riveting distractions. Conservatives and tea partiers fear invasive government regulation and excessive taxation, while railing against government takeovers—even as corporate lobbyists write our public healthcare bills to favor private interests. Similarly, progressives rail against an emergent proto-fascist corps of private guns-for-hire, warrantless wiretapping, and the potential government-approved assassination of U.S. citizens, all sanctioned by a perpetual, and apparently open-ended, state of war.
Yet, if this is socialism, why are private health insurers the government’s go-to guys for healthcare coverage? If this is fascism, why haven’t the secret police rounded up tea partiers and progressive critics as well and sent them to the lager or the gulag?
Consider this: America is not now, nor has it often been, a hotbed of political radicalism. We have no substantial socialist or workers’ party. (Unless you’re deluded, please don’t count the corporate-friendly “Democrat” party here.) We have no substantial fascist party. (Unless you’re deluded, please don’t count the cartoonish “tea partiers” here; these predominantly white, graying, and fairly affluent Americans seem most worried that the jackbooted thugs will be coming for them.)
What drives America today is, in fact, business—just as was true in the days of Calvin Coolidge. But it’s not the fair-minded “free enterprise” system touted in those freshly revised Texas guidelines for American history textbooks; rather, it’s a rigged system of crony capitalism that increasingly ends in what, if we were looking at some other country, we would recognize as an unabashed kleptocracy.
Recall, if you care to, those pallets stacked with hundreds of millions of dollars that the Bush administration sent to Iraq and which, Houdini-like, simply disappeared. Think of the ever-rising cost of our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, now in excess of a trillion dollars, and just whose pockets are full, thanks to them.
If you want to know the true state of our government and where it’s heading, follow the money (if you can) and remain vigilant: our kleptocratic Houdinis are hard at work, seeking to make yet more money vanish from your pockets—and reappear in theirs.
From Each According to His Gullibility—To Each According to His Greed
Never has the old adage my father used to repeat to me—”the rich get richer and the poor poorer”—seemed fresher or truer. If you want confirmation of just where we are today, for instance, consider this passage from a recent piece by Tony Judt:
In 2005, 21.2 percent of U.S. national income accrued to just 1 percent of earners. Contrast 1968, when the CEO of General Motors took home, in pay and benefits, about sixty-six times the amount paid to a typical GM worker. Today the CEO of Wal-Mart earns nine hundred times the wages of his average employee. Indeed, the wealth of the Wal-Mart founder’s family in 2005 was estimated at about the same ($90 billion) as that of the bottom 40 percent of the U.S. population: 120 million people.
Wealth concentration is only one aspect of our increasingly kleptocratic system. War profiteering by corporations (however well disguised as heartfelt support for our heroic warfighters) is another. Meanwhile, retired senior military officers typically line up to cash in on the kleptocratic equivalent of welfare, peddling their “expertise” in return for impressive corporate and Pentagon payouts that supplement their six-figure pensions. Even that putative champion of the Carhartt-wearing common folk, Sarah Palin, pocketed a cool $12 million last year without putting the slightest dent in her populist bona fides.
Based on such stories, now legion, perhaps we should rewrite George Orwell’s famous tagline from Animal Farm as: All animals are equal, but a few are so much more equal than others.
And who are those “more equal” citizens? Certainly, major corporations, which now enjoy a kind of political citizenship and the largesse of a federal government eager to rescue them from their financial mistakes, especially when they’re judged “too big to fail.” In raiding the U.S. Treasury, big banks and investment firms, shamelessly ready to jack up executive pay and bonuses even after accepting billions in taxpayer-funded bailouts, arguably outgun militarized multinationals in the conquest of the public realm and the extraction of our wealth for their benefit.
Such kleptocratic outfits are, of course, abetted by thousands of lobbyists and by politicians who thrive off corporate campaign contributions. Indeed, many of our more prominent public servants have proved expert at spinning through the revolving door into the private sector. Even ex-politicians who prefer to be seen as sympathetic to the little guy like former House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt eagerly cash in.
I’m Shocked, Shocked, to Find Profiteering Going on Here
An old Roman maxim enjoins us to “let justice be done, though the heavens fall.” Within our kleptocracy, the prevailing attitude is an insouciant “We’ll get ours, though the heavens fall.” This mindset marks the decline of our polity. A spirit of shared sacrifice, dismissed as hopelessly naïve, has been replaced by a form of tribalized privatization in which insiders find ways to profit no matter what.
Is it any surprise then that, in seeking to export our form of government to Iraq and Afghanistan, we’ve produced not two model democracies, but two emerging kleptocracies, fueled respectively by oil and opium?
When we confront corruption in Iraq or Afghanistan, are we not like the police chief in the classic movie Casablanca who is shocked, shocked to find gambling going on at Rick’s Café, even as he accepts his winnings?
Why then do we bother to feign shock when Iraqi and Afghan elites, a tiny minority, seek to enrich themselves at the expense of the majority?
Shouldn’t we be flattered? Imitation, after all, is the sincerest form of flattery. Isn’t it?
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http://informationclearinghouse.info/57800.htm
Doomsday for the Buck? "A Reserve Currency Is No Longer Needed"
Question 1– To what extent has the war in Ukraine accelerated the move to a new global realignment?
Paul Craig Roberts– It was Washington’s economic sanctions against Russia, the theft of Russia’s central bank reserves, and the theft of Venezuela’s gold, not the conflict in Ukraine, that weaponized the US dollar and resulted in global realignment.
The limited Russian intervention in Donbas was Putin’s belated eight-year-delayed response to the US coup that overthrew the government of Ukraine in 2014 and installed a government hostile to Russia and to the Russian population that had been incorporated into the Ukraine province of the Soviet Union by Soviet leaders. The intervention was forced on Putin by the United States’ buildup of a large Ukraine army poised to overthrow the self-declared Donbas republics.
By habit and convenience, the US dollar is used as world money to settle imbalances in international trade, but the sanctions woke the world up to the risks of using the dollar. Consequently, the BRICS suddenly expanded with membership extended to Argentina, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The organization now contains essentially the entirety of world oil production and 40-45% of World GDP.
Clearly, a realignment has already occurred.
Question 2– Iran, Saudi Arabia and UAE have now all joined BRICS. How will this affect the dollar’s role as the world’s reserve currency? (Is this the end of the petrodollar??)
Paul Craig Roberts– Saudi Arabia announced the end of the petrodollar when it began accepting payment for oil in other currencies. The BRICS are working out how-to carry-on trade among themselves without use of the US dollar, which in effect brings to an end the role of the dollar as world reserve currency.
The BRICS might try to create a new reserve currency consisting of a weighted basket of their currencies. This is unnecessary and could lead to strains among BRICS members from disputes over the shares of each currency in the basket. A reserve currency is no longer needed. A reserve currency was needed at the end of WWII because the other industrialized economies were destroyed. As the US had the only intact economy, the role fell to the US dollar. Today this is not the situation. Central banks can keep their reserves in the form of the currencies of their trading partners.
What this means for Washington is that the US will begin having financing problems for its large budget and trade deficits. As long as the dollar was the world money, foreign central banks kept their reserves in US Treasury debt. As US budget and trade deficits grew, so did the reserves of the world banking system.
The situation is changing. If a dozen countries constituting about half of the world’s population and 40-45% of world GDP cease using the dollar, the foreign central bank market for US debt shrinks considerably. Having offshored its manufacturing, the US is import-dependent. Declining use of the dollar means a declining supply of customers for US debt, which means pressure on the dollar’s exchange value and the prospect of rising inflation from rising prices of imports.
Question 3– Can Washington allow this realignment to stand or should we expect to see a coup in Saudi Arabia where the US has five military bases and numerous CIA offices?
Paul Craig Roberts– I do not know if Washington has the ability to overthrow the Saudi government or whether Russia, China, and Iran would permit it. Remember, President Obama was going to overthrow Assad in Syria, but Putin did not permit it.
Question 4– The globalist dreams of the western oligarchs (WEF) appear to be coming to an end along with the so-called “rules-based order”. In your opinion, how important has Vladimir Putin been in spearheading the move towards a “new architecture for global security” and laying the groundwork for a new multipolar world order?
Paul Craig Roberts– What broke up Washington’s version of global order was the West’s cold shoulder to Putin’s effort to be a part of the world order on equal standing and not in a subservient position. It was Washington’s arrogance and foolishness that broke up the global order.
Question 5– Before he died, national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski warned that the US would need to seek an accommodation with Russia and China to ease the transition away from the unipolar system. Here’s what he said:
“As its era of global dominance ends, the United States needs to take the lead in realigning the global power architecture… the United States is still the world’s politically, economically, and militarily most powerful entity but, given complex geopolitical shifts in regional balances, i t is no longer the globally imperial power….
the United States must take the lead in realigning the global power architecture in such a way that the violence …can be contained without destroying the global order.…
a long and painful road toward an initially limited regional accommodation is the only viable option for the United States, Russia, China, and the pertinent Middle Eastern entities. For the United States, that will require patient persistence in forging cooperative relationships with some new partners (particularly Russia and China)…
The fact is that there has never been a truly “dominant” global power until the emergence of America on the world scene…. During the latter part of the 20th century no other power even came close. That era is now ending. Toward a Global Realignment, Zbigniew Brzezinski, The American Interest
In your opinion, how should the United States deal with Moscow and Beijing? Is there a way that we can defend US interests while –at the same time– avoiding years of conflict and confrontation? What should our foreign policy objectives be?
Paul Craig Roberts– The neoconservatives’ goal of US hegemony prevents Washington from hearing Brzezinski’s advice. Washington’s chance to deal with Russia and China has passed. The question we face is how will Russia and China deal with Washington. The neoconservative monopoly on US foreign policy means that there are no other voices for Washington to hear, and American hegemony is out of the question.
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https://www.globalresearch.ca/911-conspiracy-theory/5793357
VIDEO: 9/11: A Conspiracy Theory. “Because Ignorance is Strength”
( Video at article address or at link below )
Twenty-two years ago: 9/11 was a criminal undertaking based on countless lies and fabrications. On September 11, 20233, we commemorate 9/11.
In the following weeks, Global Research will be publishing several important articles pertaining to 9/11 and its immediate aftermath, leading to the illegal US-NATO bombing and occupation of Afghanistan.
Below is the carefully documented and incisive video by James Corbett, initially released in 2011
***
Transcript
On the morning of September 11, 2001, 19 men armed with boxcutters directed by a man [Osama bin Laden] on dialysis in a hospital halfway around the world using a satellite phone and a laptop directed the most sophisticated penetration of the most heavily-defended airspace in the world, overpowering the passengers and the military combat-trained pilots on 4 commercial aircraft before flying those planes wildly off course for over an hour without being molested by a single fighter interceptor.
These 19 hijackers, devout religious fundamentalists who liked to drink alcohol, snort cocaine, and live with pink-haired strippers, managed to knock down 3 buildings with 2 planes in New York, while in Washington a pilot who couldn’t handle a single engine Cessna was able to fly a 757 in an 8,000 foot descending 270 degree corskscrew turn to come exactly level with the ground, hitting the Pentagon in the budget analyst office where DoD staffers were working on the mystery of the 2.3 trillion dollars that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had announced “missing” from the Pentagon’s coffers in a press conference the day before, on September 10, 2001.
Luckily, the news anchors knew who did it within minutes, the pundits knew within hours, the Administration knew within the day, and the evidence literally fell into the FBI’s lap. But for some reason a bunch of crazy conspiracy theorists demanded an investigation into the greatest attack on American soil in history.
The investigation was delayed, underfunded, set up to fail, a conflict of interest and a cover up from start to finish. It was based on testimony extracted through torture, the records of which were destroyed.
It failed to mention the existence of WTC7, Able Danger, Ptech, Sibel Edmonds, OBL and the CIA, and the drills of hijacked aircraft being flown into buildings that were being simulated at the precise same time that those events were actually happening.
It was lied to by the Pentagon, the CIA, the Bush Administration and as for Bush and Cheney…well, no one knows what they told it because they testified in secret, off the record, not under oath and behind closed doors. It didn’t bother to look at who funded the attacks because that question is of “little practical significance“. Still, the 9/11 Commission did brilliantly, answering all of the questions the public had (except most of the victims’ family members’ questions) and pinned blame on all the people responsible (although no one so much as lost their job), determining the attacks were “a failure of imagination” because “I don’t think anyone could envision flying airplanes into buildings ” except the Pentagon and FEMA and NORAD and the NRO.
The DIA destroyed 2.5 TB of data on Able Danger, but that’s OK because it probably wasn’t important.
The SEC destroyed their records on the investigation into the insider trading before the attacks, but that’s OK because destroying the records of the largest investigation in SEC history is just part of routine record keeping.
NIST has classified the data that they used for their model of WTC7’s collapse, but that’s OK because knowing how they made their model of that collapse would “jeopardize public safety“.
The FBI has argued that all material related to their investigation of 9/11 should be kept secret from the public, but that’s OK because the FBI probably has nothing to hide.
This man never existed, nor is anything he had to say worthy of your attention, and if you say otherwise you are a paranoid conspiracy theorist and deserve to be shunned by all of humanity. Likewise him, him, him, and her. (and her and her and him).
Osama Bin Laden lived in a cave fortress in the hills of Afghanistan, but somehow got away.
Then he was hiding out in Tora Bora but somehow got away.
Then he lived in Abottabad [Pakistan] for years, taunting the most comprehensive intelligence dragnet employing the most sophisticated technology in the history of the world for 10 years, releasing video after video with complete impunity (and getting younger and younger as he did so), before finally being found in a daring SEAL team raid which wasn’t recorded on video, in which he didn’t resist or use his wife as a human shield, and in which these crack special forces operatives panicked and killed this unarmed man, supposedly the best source of intelligence about those dastardly terrorists on the planet.
Then they dumped his body in the ocean before telling anyone about it. Then a couple dozen of that team’s members [SEAL] died in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan.
This is the story of 9/11, brought to you by the media which told you the hard truths about JFK and incubator babies and mobile production facilities and the rescue of Jessica Lynch.
If you have any questions about this story…you are a batshit, paranoid, tinfoil, dog-abusing baby-hater and will be reviled by everyone. If you love your country and/or freedom, happiness, rainbows, rock and roll, puppy dogs, apple pie and your grandma, you will never ever express doubts about any part of this story to anyone. Ever.
This has been a public service announcement by: the Friends of the FBI, CIA, NSA, DIA, SEC, MSM, White House, NIST, and the 9/11 Commission. Because Ignorance is Strength.
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