Escape From Toronto

This past week the city of Toronto, Canada's largest city, was the inauspicious site of the most recent G-20 meeting.  The purpose of this global gathering is to create a forum between the largest economic players to facilitate cooperation and consultation on matters pertaining to the international financial system.  There is no negotiated or established basis for the existence of this group within the scope of the international frameworks established after the Second World War.  In fact, its value given its record on managing global risk and producing long-term solutions since the crash of 2008, which has lead to this present depression, is dismal.

Approximately 19,000 law enforcement officers and an overall budget of $1-Billion dollars was utilized to transform, what has been described as one of the most cosmopolitan and livable cities in the world, into an open prison for its inhabitants.  An exclusive economic territory, called the Red Zone, was carved out of downtown Toronto and handed over to the aristocracy of the respective G-20 countries.  Previous G-20 meetings held in Washington DC, London, and Pittsburgh required a tenth of the cost and police manpower.

Over the weekend, despite the awesome display of manpower, weaponry, and tactical support, the para-military force that was occupying the city let a small group of hooligans destroy shop-fronts across Yonge St., Queen St., and other downtown thoroughfares.  As many as five police cruisers were either destroyed and/or incinerated by these same "black-block" anarchist groups.

Street vandals and hooligan masses are a constant fact in every major North American city having sporting franchises. As Linda McQuaig of the Toronto Star points out, the city of Montreal regularly contains and manages these lawless entities without spending billions or even millions, when the Canadiens (hockey team) are engaged in playoff matches. To secure the downtown area, police used tear gas and rubber bullets to break up mobs, and arrested more than 900 persons.

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association said that police conduct during the meeting was "at times, disproportionate, arbitrary and excessive." The response to pockets of criminal activity was also "unprecedented, disproportionate and, at times, unconstitutional," the rights group said in a report. The abuses "exceeded the threshold of a few isolated incidents" and "they demand accountability," it said, joined by several rights groups including Amnesty International in calling for an inquiry into police conduct.

Steve Paikin, veteran journalist, described being threatened with arrest and then escorted out of the public melee by security forces. He live-tweeted that he witnessed an independent journalist working on behalf of The Guardian UK, that was assaulted, punched in both the stomach and back, then hauled away by police. The CBC states, the journalist "was arrested for breach of the peace and taken to the detention centre in the city's east end at midnight where he stayed until his release 18 hours later with no charges." Threats of sexual violence were allegedly made against at least two female journalists who were also assaulted and jailed by police forces.

Why did any of this need to occur? Why were the police forces unable to respond to a handful of hooligans, but felt it necessary to use excessive and clearly illegal measures against Canadian citizens, journalists, and even innocent by-standers that posed no immediate threat to anyone? It is my belief that this entire fiasco was managed from the beginning in order to justify the the exorbitant costs of this useless public relations event. The extraordinary level of force was furthermore meant as a warning to all people everywhere, that the state will not accept any sort of opposition to its economic policies, which operate at the behest of the mighty financial and corporate institutions that are at the center of global power.

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Additional links:

NYTimes "Police in Toronto Criticized for Treatment of Protesters, Many Peaceful"

Interview with Steve Paikin on what he observed

Quote of the Day: MSM you're useless

If there's a lower form of life on the planet earth than a "reputable" journalist protecting his territory, I haven't seen it.

- Matt Taibbi on Lara Logan's riposte to Rolling Stone's McChrystal article

Paul Krugman on our Current Depression

a significant proportion of the economics profession has spent the last three decades systematically destroying the hard-won knowledge of macroeconomics. It’s truly a new Dark Age, in which famous professors are reinventing errors refuted 70 years ago, and calling them insights.

- Paul Krugman

In the fall of 2007, I read Prof. Paul Krugman's NY Times column with great interest, because in it lay the seeds towards understanding our current calamity.  In it he inveighed against the recklessness of the Bush junta's tax policy and their pro-corporate policies that had boosted big business' bottom-line, but failed to produce any meaningful or sustained growth for ordinary citizens.  The dismal jobs report that emerged earlier that month, in which Krugman referenced, was a precursor to the worst economic turn-down since the Great Depression of 1929.

Likewise in today's NY Times op-ed he re-iterates -what should be obvious to all who never bought the original green-sprouts argument offered by the high-priests of commerce- is that "we’re looking at a lost decade."  He proclaims that given the misaligned interests of governments across the globe, that we are witnessing the solidification of the Third Great Depression of the modern era.

To quote:

We are now, I fear, in the early stages of a third depression. It will probably look more like the Long Depression than the much more severe Great Depression. But the cost — to the world economy and, above all, to the millions of lives blighted by the absence of jobs will nonetheless be immense.

With the cumulative failures of modern finance and crony capitalism witness to all and the well anticipated onset of resource scarcity, climate change, and ecological collapse posed to overwhelm all nations, I'm quite confident that Malthusian arguments will dominate this last century of humanity.

Welcome to the beginning of the end...

Quote of the Day: Banking Should be Dull

If bankers want to lead the exciting hedge-fund life, earning hedge-fund-like profits and bonuses, let them go work for a hedge fund.

According to Steven Pearlstein, bankers should appreciate the role that they play in the scheme of capitalism, which entails being part of a boring institution that effectively manages risk.  If on the other hand, bankers want to engage in casino-capitalism then they should not expect "we the people" to subsidize their misadventures and underwrite their losses.  Someone should explain this to Tim Geithner and Mr. Obama, because at this point they are almost certain to be looking down the barrel of another recession by the end of this year.

That Strange Concept Called Accountability!

Something remarkable happened last month that the press seems to have thoroughly overlooked here in the Americas.  The newly formed Conservative-Liberal Democrats coalition government in Britain told the country that they were going to reform civil liberties that had been badly diminished under Labour and equally, hold the previous government accountable their years of participating in the kidnapping, rendition, and torture of persons across the globe.

Nick Clegg, Deputy Prime-Minister, made a speech declaring that the coming changes would be the biggest shake-up in UK democracy since 1832.  He railed against a litany of previous Labour government policies that formed the basis of Britain's surveillance state:

• ID Card schemes
• national identity registers
• biometric passports
• the storing of Internet and email records
• DNA databases
• proliferating security cameras
• repressive restrictions on free speech and assembly rights

Mr. Clegg's party before the election didn't mince words.  The Liberal-Democrats stated in their party platform that, "The Government believes the British state has become too authoritarian, and that over the past decade it has abused fundamental human rights and historic civil liberties."  He further inveighed against the current criminal justice system which imprisons too many citizens without improving public safety, and "pledged radical reform to empower citizens" over entrenched and wealthy interests.

William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, announced that an independent judge will investigate whether the British government was complicit in the torture of terror suspects.  The Guardian summarizes:

The judicial inquiry announced by the foreign secretary into Britain's role in torture and rendition since September 2001 is poised to shed extraordinary light on one of the darkest episodes in the country's recent history.

It is expected to expose not only details of the activities of the security and intelligence officials alleged to have colluded in torture since 9/11, but also the identities of the senior figures in government who authorised those activities. . . . Those who have been most bitterly resisting an inquiry -- including a number of senior figures in the last government -- may have been dismayed to see the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition formed, as this maximised the chances of a judicial inquiry being established.

Glenn Greenwald describes the mindset of Barack Obama, who claimed during the 2008 election that it was his desire to hold the Bush junta to account for their crimes.  To date the Obama administration has held none of the fiends who lied and took America to war on bogus premises, engaged in wholesale torture across the globe, and violated the Geneva conventions.  George W. Bush has already admitted that he knew his top national security advisers discussed and approved specific details of the CIA's use of torture.  Earlier this month, he further admitted that "Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, was waterboarded by the US, and said he would do it again 'to save lives'." This is consistent with Dick Cheney's bold statement to the world, back in February,where he announced that he was a "big supporter of waterboarding."

Andrew Sullivan and Scott Horton have both said that president Obama and his AG are now obligated to prosecute both Messrs Bush and Cheney.

[T]he attorney general of the United States is legally obliged to prosecute someone who has openly admitted such a war crime or be in violation of the Geneva Conventions and the UN Convention on Torture. For Eric Holder to ignore this duty subjects him too to prosecution. If the US government fails to enforce the provision against torture, the UN or a foreign court can initiate an investigation and prosecution.... Cheney himself just set in motion a chain of events that the civilized world must see to its conclusion or cease to be the civilized world. For such a high official to escape the clear letter of these treaties and conventions, and to openly brag of it, renders such treaties and conventions meaningless.

How far down the rabbit hole have we all gone, where the Conservatives of Britain are willing to hold their people to account, while the Obama administration gives the worst government in the history of the American republic another "get-out of jail" card and the press doesn't bother talking about any of it?

Fanatics and the Undermining of Israel

Much ink has been spilt in the last several weeks over Israel's embargo over the Gaza Strip and dueling arguments regarding the influence Jewish-American political action groups have over Washington's foreign policy.  Very little however, has been said in what may actually be the greatest threat to Israel in the long term.  That threat is the growing power of the ultra-orthodox Jews, who currently reside within Israel, and their determination to engage in their fundamentalist beliefs exclusively.

Over the past several years, tensions between ultra-orthodox Jews and secular and moderate Jews have increased to the point where Israel's future as an inclusive state for all Jewish persons is now in question.  The Haredi Jews, in particular, pose a substantial economic strain on the finances of the state, as many men choose years of subsidized religious study over paid employment.  With their third-world like birth rates, the ultra-orthodox sects are predicted to form a majority of Jerusalem's half million population by the end of the decade.  Their religio-political views are anathema to that of any liberal democracy.  For example, Haredi leaders have denounced reform and conservative synagogues as “reeking of hell” and have repeatedly said that democracy has no place in Judaism.  One leader was imprisoned for 10-months after a plot to attack the Knesset (Israeli parliament) was uncovered.  Violence in Haredi communities against all entities not belonging to their sect has become so widespread that police won't enter these areas out of fear of retaliation.  Their growing influence has pulled the political center of the country to the far-right.  Kadima, the party formed by Ariel Sharon and which is by all definitions a center-right party, now occupies the left wing in the Knesset.

On Thursday the latest installment of this culture-war was made apparent in the streets of Jerusalem.  According to the Independent UK newspaper, more than 100,000 ultra-Orthodox Jews took to the streets of central Jerusalem to protest the country's Supreme court decision on school integration policies.  Parents of Ashkenazi ultra-orthodox sects were demanding that their daughters be educated in different classrooms from schoolgirls of Middle Eastern and North African descent, or Sephardim.  They claim that the ultra-orthodox Sephardim are not as religious.  The Guardian newspaper elaborates:

Underlying the case is the rejection of what the ultra-Orthodox community's sees as state interference in their religious practice and life. "We don't give our girls all the knowledge that there is in the world," said Esther Bark, 50, a mother of seven daughters watching the male-only demonstration today. "We shelter them, and that's why they need a sheltered school. We can't mix a whole assortment of girls in one school."

The NY Times outlines the court's decision which equates the segregation policies employed by the Ashkenazi Haredi as racist and discriminatory.  Other Israelis have far sharper words about the Haredi.  The Independent article quotes a Haaretz editorial that states, "Such groups... demand state funds to strengthen the independent education system that serves their children, but are unwilling to give in on even a single convention that governs their lifestyle."   Secular Jews are enraged by the willingness of the ultra-orthodox sects to dismiss laws.

"The ultra-Orthodox community is getting stronger and stronger," said Yitzhak Brudny, a political scientist at Jerusalem's Hebrew University. "The tensions between the religious and secular communities have become especially pronounced. It's both a class war and a cultural war. The ultra-Orthodox are dirt poor. Among secular Israelis and moderate Orthodox Jews, they are seen basically as parasites. And they have no desire to integrate with other communities." (Guardian UK)

Other religious persons in the country have also condemned the actions and misbehavior of the Haredi. Rabbi Yuval Sherlo, stated that "I cannot take part in the racism and discrimination that is taking place, which is just the tip of the iceberg... It's impossible to claim that this is Jewish law or that it is sanctifying the name of God."

Many others are describing the actions of the Haredi as nothing less than a struggle for the very existence of Israel.

Yossi Sarid, a former member of the Knesset, wrote in the Ha'aretz newspaper. "Now it is happening; the war has erupted. The great Haredi [ultra-Orthodox] rebellion has begun and is raging on several fronts … It will destroy basic values, without which a democratic, developed state cannot exist. It will be lost unless it fights back." (Guardian UK)

Torture me Slowly: Bush's Medical Experimentation Program

With each turn and further examination of the Bush Administration's institutional program of torture, the history becomes more surreal and terrifying.  According to a report issued by Physicians for Human Rights, the Bush Administration engaged in human experimentation with detainees across the globe in order to empirically assess the degree to which they could inflict pain on their prisoners without killing them.

Health professionals engaged in research on detainees, in violation of the Geneva Conventions and other international and domestic prohibitions against human subject research and experimentation. This research included monitoring the effects of abusive treatment, including waterboarding and sleep deprivation, in order to assess how far "enhanced interrogation techniques" could go and still be within the legal parameters and to guide the future application of the techniques.

James Risen, who exposed the existence of the National Security Agency’s warrantless surveillance program in 2006, has written another article in the NY Times outlining the findings of the PHR report.

The data collected by medical professionals from the interrogations of detainees allowed the C.I.A. to judge the emotional and physical impact of the techniques, helping the agency to “calibrate the level of pain experienced by detainees during interrogation, ostensibly to keep it from crossing the administration’s legal threshold of what it claimed constituted torture,” the report said. That meant that the medical professionals crossed the line from treating the detainees as patients to treating them as research subjects, the report asserted.

This is not a triviality.  Medical physicians and psychologists, as the report, the Times article, and numerous others have pointed out, are prohibited by national and international codes in conducting human experimentation without informed consent.  There are no persons undecided as to if the Nazi's, the Imperial Japanese, or the Khmer Rouge were not criminal when they engaged in these heinous actions.  However, these practices also remind us of America's own dark history of eugenics, experimentation on black citizens and prisoners throughout the 20th century, and military/CIA studies on large scale groups, which has all been well chronicled.  It is therefore no surprise when these sadists rear their ugly heads and perversely claim that torture (or "wink" something like it) is a necessity required to protect Americans from foreign enemies.  What has been done is inexcusible; it is a war crime.

The authors provide evidence about the government's meticulous studies:

The report cites agency guidelines for health professionals involved in interrogations requiring that they document each time a detainee was waterboarded, how long each waterboarding session lasted, how much water was applied, exactly how the water was applied and expelled, whether the detainees’ breathing passages were filled, and how each detainee looked between treatments.

Andrew Sullivan asks, "where was the experimentation taking place? How many doctors and psychologists were involved? Was there a separate facility, as at Bagram, for experimenting with torture? Did these experiments ever go wrong?"

Whereas, Glenn Greenwald asks what is President Obama doing to investigate, prosecute, and prevent this from occurring again?  The horrible answer is obvious; nothing.  Obama has decided that the country and more importantly the American Empire cannot afford to be hijacked by squabbles over petty matters like constitutional law or war crimes committed by the executive.  Rather, the nation must boldly ignore the slight inconveniences of the previous Bush administration and get on with the business of voting for the next American Idol.

Quote of the Day: Ellsberg on Obama

Daniel Ellsberg, the legendary Vietnam era whistleblower, is now 79 and has a few choice words for Mr. Obama.  In the English edition of Der Speigel, Mr. Ellsberg says Mr. Obama,when it comes to "civil liberties, violations of the constitution and the wars in the Middle East" is nothing less than Dubya's third term.  He further elaborates:

He's a good politician. He said what he needed to say to get elected, and now he's just taking advantage of the office. Like any administration before, his administration caters to the profits of big corporations like BP and Goldman Sachs... His early campaign contributions, the big corporate contributions, came from Wall Street. They got their money's worth.

To those who are unfamilar with "The Pentagon Papers", here is a quick recap.  In 1971 Ellsberg, a former US military analyst, triggered a national crisis by releasing to the New York Times and other newspapers, what has now become known as the "Pentagon Papers."  The 7,000 page classified Pentagon document, commissioned by then-Defense Secretary Robert McNamara,  revealed that the US government knew the Vietnam War was ultimately unwinnable. The Nixon White House fought the publication of the documents to the Supreme Court and when that proved unsuccessful, proceeded to smear and persecute Ellsberg.