readersupportednews | Luckily for the populations and societies that will be affected by the agreement, there are public research organizations and alternative media outlets campaigning against it - and they've even released several
leaks of draft agreement chapters. From these leaks, which are not
covered by mainstream corporate-controlled news outlets, we are able to
get a better understanding of what the Trans-Pacific Partnership
actually encompasses.
For example, public interest groups have been warning
that the TPP could result in millions of lost jobs. As a letter from
Congress to United States Trade Representative Ron Kirk stated, the TPP
"will create binding policies on future Congresses in numerous areas,"
including "those related to labor, patent and copyright, land use, food,
agriculture and product standards, natural resources, the environment,
professional licensing, state-owned enterprises and government
procurement policies, as well as financial, healthcare, energy,
telecommunications and other service sector regulations."
In other words, as promised, the TPP goes far beyond "trade."
Dubbed by many as "NAFTA on steroids" and a "corporate
coup," only two of the TPP's 26 chapters actually have anything to do
with trade. Most of it grants far-reaching new rights and privileges to
corporations, specifically related to intellectual property rights
(copyright and patent laws), as well as constraints on government
regulations.
The leaked documents revealed that the Obama
administration "intends to bestow radical new political powers upon
multinational corporations," as Obama and Kirk have emerged as strong
advocates "for policies that environmental activists, financial reform
advocates and labor unions have long rejected for eroding key
protections currently in domestic laws."
In other words, the already ineffective and mostly
toothless environmental, financial, and labor regulations that exist are
unacceptable to the Obama administration and the 600 corporations
aligned with the TPP who are giving him his orders.
The agreement stipulates that foreign corporations
operating in the United States would no longer be subject to domestic
U.S. laws regarding protections for the environment, finance or labor
rights, and could appeal to an "international tribunal" which would be
given the power to overrule American law and impose sanctions on the
U.S. for violating the new "rights" of corporations.
thedailysquib | In a remarkable admission by former Nixon era Secretary of State,
Henry Kissinger, reveals what is happening at the moment in the world
and particularly the Middle East. [ACCURATE SATIRE]
Speaking from his luxurious Manhattan apartment, the elder statesman,
who will be 89 in May, is all too forward with his analysis of the
current situation in the world forum of Geo-politics and economics.
“The United States is bating China and Russia, and the final nail in
the coffin will be Iran, which is, of course, the main target of Israel.
We have allowed China to increase their military strength and Russia to
recover from Sovietization, to give them a false sense of bravado, this
will create an all together faster demise for them. We’re like the
sharp shooter daring the noob to pick up the gun, and when they try,
it’s bang bang. The coming war will will be so severe that only one
superpower can win, and that’s us folks. This is why the EU is in such a
hurry to form a complete superstate because they know what is coming,
and to survive, Europe will have to be one whole cohesive state. Their
urgency tells me that they know full well that the big showdown is upon
us. O how I have dreamed of this delightful moment.”
“Control oil and you control nations; control food and you control the people.”
Mr Kissinger then added: “If you are an ordinary person, then you can
prepare yourself for war by moving to the countryside and building a
farm, but you must take guns with you, as the hordes of starving will be
roaming. Also, even though the elite will have their safe havens and
specialist shelters, they must be just as careful during the war as the
ordinary civilians, because their shelters can still be compromised.”
After pausing for a few minutes to collect his thoughts, Mr Kissinger, carried on:
“We told the military that we would have to take over seven Middle
Eastern countries for their resources and they have nearly completed
their job. We all know what I think of the military, but I have to say
they have obeyed orders superfluously this time. It is just that last
stepping stone, i.e. Iran which will really tip the balance. How long
can China and Russia stand by and watch America clean up? The great
Russian bear and Chinese sickle will be roused from their slumber and
this is when Israel will have to fight with all its might and weapons to
kill as many Arabs as it can. Hopefully if all goes well, half the
Middle East will be Israeli. Our young have been trained well for the
last decade or so on combat console games, it was interesting to see the
new Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 game, which mirrors exactly what is
to come in the near future with its predictive programming. Our young,
in the US and West, are prepared because they have been programmed to be
good soldiers, cannon fodder, and when they will be ordered to go out
into the streets and fight those crazy Chins and Russkies, they will
obey their orders. Out of the ashes we shall build a new society, there
will only be one superpower left, and that one will be the global
government that wins. Don’t forget, the United States, has the best
weapons, we have stuff that no other nation has, and we will introduce
those weapons to the world when the time is right.”
End of interview. Our reporter is ushered out of the room by Kissinger’s minder.
columbia | The Center on Global Legal Transformation at Columbia University in New
York is launching a call for proposals by junior researchers on
governing scarce, yet essential goods. Selected proposals shall be
presented at panel sessions at a conference held in New York on 20-21
June 2013. The research project is coordinated by Prof. Katharina
Pistor, the Director of the Center on Global Legal Transformation, and
Prof. Olivier De Schutter, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the
right to food.
A number of factors have led to dramatically increased pressure on
land and the essential resources it harbors: population growth and a
corresponding rise in demand for agricultural and other commodities;
competing uses of land between different forms of agriculture, resource
extraction, large-scale industrial projects and urban sprawl;
environmental degradation from climate change and unsustainable
practices; and trade and investment liberalization, among others. As a
result, water, food and shelter are increasingly considered scarce and
subjected to commercial pressures that make them inaccessible to many.
Private property rights regimes have traditionally been considered the
most effective institutional arrangement to allocate scarce goods and
combat what has been termed the “tragedy of the commons” – the
depletion of scarce common resources by actors who disregard the
carrying capacity of the land and bear no costs for their actions.
Individual property rights regimes lead to allocation of land to the
highest bidder, who is presumed to put the land to its most efficient
use. But conversion to private property regimes has also resulted in
widespread displacement of small holders and indigenous people and the
exclusion of many others from access to resources essential to their
livelihoods.
Two well-studied alternatives to private property rights are
collective governance by local authorities and centralized control.
However, neither fully addresses the problems of scarce, essential
goods. Collective governance is limited by a community’s ability to
manage collective action problems, but the governance issues we are
facing are those of a heterogeneous world with high social mobility
and rapidly changing social norms. Similarly, centralized control
depends on the authority and wisdom of the central decision-maker, who
may lack local knowledge and accountability. Political voice might
address problems of accountability, but how to organize voice in a
global world remains an open question.
Proposals should suggest models for governing essential, scarce
resources. They can be qualitative or quantitative; make use of
empirical data and field research or suggest a new theoretical
approach. They should address if and how the following three normative
goals
(the basis of the triangle to which the title refers) for managing scarce, essential goods can be realized:
• equity (universal access to those resources that are essential for human life);
• efficiency (in managing scarce essential goods and minimizing waste); and
• sustainability (arrangements that do not unduly interfere with future productivity or availability of essentials).
wired | Most people have pulled long-forgotten vegetables from their
refrigerator's depths at least once, and just the memory is enough to
make a stomach turn. But one man's fridge mold is another man's still
life. Estonian artist Heikki Leis' Afterlife is a veritable rotting cornucopia of vegetables photographed long past their prime.
"I was inspired by some potatoes I had once left out in a pot for too
long. They had started to mold and on closer examination the colors and
textures looked interesting enough to take some photos," Leis wrote in
an e-mail.
Leis then started experimenting with various fruits and vegetables.
He sometimes let them decay for two months, keeping them covered so they
wouldn't dry out. When Leis finished, he was truly finished. "I'm
tempted to say I ate them, but the truth is I just threw them away," he
said.
Leis said he'd be open to an expert's analysis of his rotting
concoctions, so Wired invited mycologist Kathie Hodge of Cornell
University, who's working on a book about food-decaying fungi, to look
at the work.
There are thousands of molds out there, and "we see them all the time
and yet we don't look at them. They live with us and we automatically
throw these things out," said Hodge, who took Wired on a tour of Leis'
moldy world, though not without a warning.
"Getting them to this level is probably not a good idea, so don't try this at home!" she said.
reuters | Financial institutions across the country still face legal
risks if they do business with marijuana shops because pot
remains illegal under federal law.
"If financial institutions are federally licensed or
insured, they must comply with federal regulations, and those
regulations are clear about conducting financial transactions
with money generated by the sale of narcotics," said Jim
Dowling, a former Internal Revenue Service special agent who
also acted as an anti-money laundering advisor to the Office of
National Drug Control Policy.
The ballot measures on Tuesday made Colorado and Washington
the first states to permit recreational marijuana sale and use.
Medical-marijuana laws have been around in some states for more
than a decade.
California was the first state to legalize medical marijuana
in 1996. With the addition of Massachusetts, which passed a
medical-marijuana ballot initiative on Tuesday, 18 states and
the District of Columbia now have such laws on their books.
The medical marijuana business was worth $1.7 billion in
2011 and growing, according to a study by financial-analysis
firm See Change Strategy.
The federal government does not recognize states' authority
to legalize marijuana under any circumstances, however. It has
targeted some medical-pot businesses for violations of the
40-year-old Controlled Substances Act, which classifies the drug
a Schedule 1 narcotic, meaning it is considered addictive and
with no medical value.
The Justice Department on Wednesday said its marijuana
enforcement policies remained unchanged. "We are reviewing the
ballot initiatives and have no additional comment at this time,"
its public statement said.
A Justice Department spokeswoman did not respond to a
request for additional comment related to banking activity.
Among the most disturbing political phenomena of our
times is the emergence in the newly created state of Israel of the "Freedom
Party" (Tnuat Haherut), a political party closely akin in its organization,
methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist
parties. It was formed out of the membership and following of the former
Irgun Zvai Leumi, a terrorist, right-wing, chauvinist organization in Palestine.
The current visit of Menachem
Begin, leader of this party, to the United States is obviously calculated
to give the impression of American support for his party in the coming
Israeli elections, and to cement political ties with conservative Zionist
elements in the United States. Several Americans of national repute have
lent their names to welcome his visit. It is inconceivable that those who
oppose fascism throughoutthe world, if correctly informed as to Mr. Begin's
political record and perspectives, could add their names and support to
the movement he represents.
Before irreparable damage is done by way of financial
contributions, public manifestations in Begin's behalf, and the creation
in Palestine of the impression that a large segment of America supports
Fascist elements in Israel, the American public must be informed as to
the record and objectives of Mr. Begin and his movement. The public avowals
of Begin's party are no guide whatever to its actual character. Today they
speak of freedom, democracy and anti-imperialism, whereas until recently
they openly preached the doctrine of the Fascist state. It is in its actions
that the terrorist party betrays its real character; from its past actions
we can judge what it may be expected to do in the future.
Attack on Arab Village
A shocking example was their behavior in the Arab village
of Deir Yassin. This village, off the main roads and surrounded by Jewish
lands, had taken no part in the war, and had even fought off Arab bands
who wanted to use the village as their base. On April 9 (THE NEW YORK TIMES),
terrorist bands attacked this peaceful village, which was not a military
objective in the fighting, killed most of its inhabitants ? 240men, women,
and children - and kept a few of them alive to parade as captives through
the streets of Jerusalem. Most of the Jewish community was horrified at
the deed, and the Jewish Agency sent a telegram of apology to King Abdullah
of Trans-Jordan. But the terrorists, far from being ashamed of their act,
were proud of this massacre, publicized it widely, and invited all the
foreign correspondents present in the country to view the heaped corpses
and the general havoc at Deir Yassin. The Deir Yassin incident exemplifies
the character and actions of the Freedom Party.
Within the Jewish community they have preached an admixture
of ultranationalism, religious mysticism, and racial superiority. Like
other Fascist parties they have been used to break strikes, and have themselves
pressed for the destruction of free trade unions. In their stead they have
proposed corporate unions on the Italian Fascist model. During the last
years of sporadic anti-British violence, the IZL and Stern groups inaugurated
a reign of terror in the Palestine Jewish community. Teachers were beaten
up for speaking against them, adults were shot for not letting their children
join them. By gangster methods, beatings, window-smashing, and wide-spread
robberies, the terrorists intimidated the population and exacted a heavy
tribute.
The people of the Freedom Party have had no part in the
constructive achievements in Palestine. They have reclaimed no land, built
no settlements, and only detracted from the Jewish defense activity. Their
much-publicized immigration endeavors were minute, and devoted mainly to
bringing in Fascist compatriots.
Discrepancies Seen
The discrepancies between the bold claims now being made
by Begin and his party, and their record of past performance in Palestine
bear the imprint of no ordinary political party. This is the unmistakable
stamp of a Fascist party for whom terrorism (against Jews, Arabs, and British
alike), and misrepresentation are means, and a "Leader State"
is the goal.
In the light of the foregoing considerations, it is imperative
that the truth about Mr. Begin and his movement be made known in this country.
It is all the more tragic that the top leadership of American Zionism has
refused to campaign against Begin's efforts, or even to expose to its own
constituents the dangers to Israel from support to Begin.
The undersigned therefore take this means of publicly
presenting a few salient facts concerning Begin and his party; and of urging
all concerned not to support this latest manifestation of fascism.
thenation | As planned Black Friday strikes draw increasing media attention,
Walmart continues to publicly dismiss the actions as stunts and the
workers involved as an unrepresentative fringe. But workers charge that
behind closed doors, the company is waging a stepped-up campaign to to
intimidate them out of striking. That includes both alleged illegal
threats and punishments, and likely legal mandatory meetings designed to
discourage workers from joining the Black Friday rebellion.
Today, OUR Walmart filed the latest of dozens of National Labor
Relations Board charges against Walmart. The charge, announced this
evening, alleges that Walmart's national headquarters has "told
store-level management to threaten workers with termination, discipline,
and/or a lawsuit if they strike or engage in other concerted job
actions on Black Friday" and that managers in cities including San
Leandro, California, Fairfield, Connecticut, and Dallas have done
exactly that. It also alleges that Walmart Vice President of
Communications David Tovar "threatened employees" with his statements.
OUR Walmart says it is seeking "immediate intervention" to remedy the
alleged crimes. In an e-mailed statement, American Rights at Work
Research Director Erin Johansson said, "Walmart appears to be issuing
serious threats to employees to stop them from exercising their rights
under law."
In past interviews, Walmart has denied that it illegally retaliates against workers for activism, and Tovar denied the latest allegations in an interview with The New York Times.
But the company has not denied that it holds mandatory meetings to
discourage it. (As in a union campaign, such “captive audience” meetings
are legal, though some “threats” are not.) OUR Walmart confirmed that
workers have reported being required to attend such meetings in the
lead-up to Black Friday.
Christopher Bentley Owen, an overnight stocker at a Tulsa Walmart supercenter, told The Nation he and his co-workers were lectured about the strike at a mandatory 10 pm
meeting last night. According to Owen, the highest-ranking manager on
the graveyard shift read, “word for word,” what appeared to be a
prepared script from corporate headquarters slamming the Black Friday
actions planned by the labor group OUR Walmart. The statement called OUR
Walmart a “wholly owned subsidiary” of the United Food & Commercial
Workers Union, called its actions a “stunt,” and warned that by
discouraging customers, the Black Friday actions would hurt employees’
end-of-quarter bonuses. Rather than downplaying it, said Owen, “It
seemed like they were treating it like the notion of people picketing
outside of stores could be a big deal.”
Owen said that his manager read, verbatim, a list of questions and
answers that appeared to have been designed to instruct managers how to
respond to workers’ questions, rather than to be read word for word.
According to Owen, the manager read a hypothetical question from a
worker who had heard that the strikes were legally protected, followed
by an answer that, “It seems to us that this action is not protected by
the law.” He read a hypothetical question from a worker about whether
striking on Friday could lead to punishment, and then, “Answer: No
comment.” After reading that, said Owen, “He kind of chuckled.”
Judging by the scripted questions and answers, said Owen, “They want
to communicate to us, or plant the idea in our heads, that we could get
disciplined.” Owen described the statement as “very much
corporate-speak. It didn’t seem like it was written by our guy.” When
the co-manager opened the floor for actual questions, said Owen, no one
spoke up.
thenation | Weeks into a wave of historic strikes, and days before a planned Black Friday showdown, Walmart has filed a National Labor Relations Board charge
alleging that the pickets are illegal and asking for a judge to shut
them down. Walmart is no stranger to the NLRB: labor groups have filed
numerous charges there accusing the retail giant of punishing or
threatening activist workers, including dozens over the past few months.
But this charge is the first one filed by
the company in a decade. It will pose a decision for a judge and, even
sooner, for the Labor Board’s Obama-appointed acting general counsel,
who’s been a lightning rod for past Republican attacks.
The National Labor Relations Board, created by the 1935 National
Labor Relations Act, is tasked with enforcing and interpreting private
sector labor law. Walmart’s charge, filed Thursday night and reported
by Reuters Friday evening, sets two processes in motion. The first,
which could take months, is the full investigation and resolution of the
allegation, beginning with fact-finding by board agents based in
Walmart’s backyard (NLRB Region 26, which covers Arkansas and three
other states). The second, which could advance as soon as this week, is
the decision whether to grant an injunction restricting strikes against
Walmart while the investigation proceeds. Experts say NLRB Acting
General Counsel Lafe Solomon would have final say over whether the board
seeks the injunction; if it does, a district court judge will decide
whether to grant it.
Reached over e-mail, Walmart Director of National Media Relations
Kory Lundberg said that the company filed the charge in part because
“many of our associates have urged us to do something about the UFCW’s
latest round of publicity stunts…” In an e-mailed statement, Dallas OUR
Walmart member Colby Harris called Walmart’s charge “baseless,” and
said, “Walmart is doing everything in its power to attempt to silence
our voice.”
bnarchives | In May 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the State of California to release 30,000 to 40,000 of its 140,000 inmates.[2] California’s prisons have become so overcrowded that the Supreme Court declared the situation unconstitutional. The decision was imminent. For nearly two decades, California, along with many other states, was busy getting ‘tough on crime’. In the early 1990s, the state enacted the ‘Three-Strikes Law’, which mandates life sentences for third-time serious crime offenders, and it pursued the country’s ‘war on drugs’ and other law-enforcement campaigns with increasing zeal. Soon enough, its prisons were overflowing at nearly twice their capacity.
The United States is often portrayed as the archetypical liberal model. It is the world’s largest, most prosperous ‘free market’ and the greatest generator of profit on earth. And yet this very liberal haven is also the largest penal system in the world. There are now more than two million inmates in its prisons and jails and another five million on probation and on parole. If you add these two numbers together, you get a ‘correctional population’ of over seven million. This correctional population is the largest in the world – both absolutely and relative to the overall population – and it is also the largest the country has ever seen.
To some, this combination of market prosperity and intense punishment may seem puzzling. Many people intuitively expect crime and punishment to correlate with poverty, backwardness and deprivation; to be a feature of the Third World, not the First.
Knowingly or not, this expectation is grounded in the conventional separation of production from state and capital from power. According to the liberal version of this separation, accumulation breeds economic prosperity, and prosperity in the economic sphere reduces crime and calls for less punishment in the socio-political sphere. However, if we discard this separation and instead think of capital as power, and of capitalism as a mode of power, the puzzle disappears. The greater the capitalization of power, the greater the resistance to that capitalization and the larger the force needed to prevent this resistance from exploding. As profits increase to make distribution more unequal, the result is mounting resistance from below, and this resistance in turn leads to retaliation from above. The rising crime and intensifying punishment that we now see in the United States are key manifestations of this dialectic of capitalized resistance and retaliation.
guardian | Many bullying experts rightly focus on the plight of vulnerable
children targeted by bullies but, before now, I wonder how many of us
considered being intelligent or talented a vulnerability? More than 90%
of the 1,000 11-16 year-olds we recently surveyed said they had been
bullied or seen someone bullied for being too intelligent or talented.
Worryingly, this means our children and young people are shying away
from academic achievement for fear of victimisation.
Almost half
of children and young people (49.5%) have played down a talent for fear
of being bullied, rising to 53% among girls. One in 10 (12%) said they
had played down their ability in science and almost one in five girls
(18.8%) and more than one in 10 boys (11.4%) are deliberately
underachieving in maths – to evade bullying.
The government has
recently pledged funding to develop a new maths course for sixth-formers
based on the assumption that current maths courses are inaccessible to
youngsters who can't see the relevance of the subject to their lives.
What our findings are telling us though, is that there is more at play
here. And we want government to take note.
What used to be left in
the playground is now following children home, through social media.
And what may have been historically viewed as a short-term problem,
which many of us endured during our school days – but not necessarily
beyond – can have a dramatic impact on our young people's futures. Fist tap Dale.
usatoday | A fourth-grade teacher in southern Idaho is being criticized after
having her students use permanent markers to draw on the faces of
classmates who failed to meet reading goals.
Some parents and
administrators say the punishments given to nine students in Summer
Larsen's class were inappropriate and left the children feeling shamed.
Cindy
Hurst said recently her 10-year-old son came home from school Nov. 5
with his entire face — including his eyelids — scribbled on with green,
red and purple markers.
"He was humiliated, he hung his head and
wanted to go wash his face," Hurst told The Times-News of Twin Falls.
"He knows he's a slow reader. Now he thinks he should be punished for
it."
Larsen, who has taught at the school for six years, didn't
respond to requests for comment. But Cassia County School District
Superintendent Gaylen Smyer confirmed what took place in her classroom,
though he didn't name Larsen.
The students were allowed to choose
their own incentive to meet the reading goal, but instead of a reward,
the class chose a punishment: Students who failed to meet the goal could
either stay inside at recess until it was met, or have their faces
written on by classmates who met the goals.
Nine students didn't
meet the goals, the paper reported Friday. Three chose to forgo recess,
and the other six chose to have their faces marked on.
"Although
all the students in the class agreed to the incentive, once it occurred
it was not so well received. Nor should it have been," Smyer said.
lfb | Banking industry insiders are upset with Amex and Wal-Mart, that
also is offering prepaid cards, because these prepaid accounts would
amount to uninsured deposits, according to Andrew Kahr, who wrote a
scathing piece on the issue for American Banker.
Kahr rips into the idea with this analogy:
“To provide even lower ‘discount prices,’ should Wal-Mart
rent decaying buildings that don’t satisfy local fire laws and building
codes — and offer still better deals to consumers? And why should
Walmart have to honor the national minimum wage law, any more than Amex
honors state banking statutes? With Bluebird, Amex can already violate
both the Bank Holding Company Act and many state banking statues.”
Kahr is implying that regulated fractionalized banking is safe and
sound, while prepaid cards provided by huge companies like Amex and
Wal-Mart is a shady scheme set up to rip off consumers. The fact is, in
the case of IndyMac, panicked customers forced regulators to close the
S&L by withdrawing only 7% of the huge S&L’s deposits. It was
about the same for WaMu and Wachovia when regulators engineered sales of
those banks being run on. Bitcoin supporters, unlike the general
public, are well aware of fractionalized banking’s fragility.
Maybe what the banking industry is really afraid of is the Amexes and
Wal-Marts of the world creating their own currencies and banking
systems. Wal-Mart has tried to get approval to open a bank for years,
and bankers have successfully stopped the retail giant for competing
with them.
However, prepaid credit cards might be just the first step toward
Wal-Mart issuing their own currency — Marts — that might initially be
used only for purchases in Wal-Mart stores. But over time, it’s not hard
to imagine Marts being traded all over town and easily converted to
dollars, pesos, Yuan, or other currencies traded where Wal-Mart has
stores. Fist tap Dale.
policymic | The first retail worker strike against Wal-Mart has spread from Los Angeles, where it began last week, to stores in a dozen cities, a union official said Tuesday. According to the Huffington Post, Wal-Mart workers walked off the job in Dallas, Seattle, the San Francisco Bay area, Miami, the Washington, D.C., area, Los Angeles, Sacramento, Chicago and Orlando, said Dan Schlademan, director of the United Food and Commercial Workers' Making Change At Wal-Mart campaign. Workers also went on strike in parts of Kentucky, Missouri and Minnesota, he said.
Tuesday's walkouts included 88 workers from 28 stores ... a fraction of the 1.4 million who work at Wal-Mart, the world's largest private employer. Until Friday, when about 60 Wal-Mart employees walked off the job for a day in LA, no Wal-Mart retail workers had ever gone on strike, the union said.
The workers are protesting company attempts to "silence and retaliate against workers for speaking out for improvements on the job," according to a United Food and Commercial Workers news release. Walmart workers, who are not unionized, have long complained of low pay and a lack of benefits.
These workers must be heard. Here are 9 reasons why:
cbsnews | This holiday season, the biggest discount chains in the U.S. will
tell the tale of two very different shoppers: Those that have and those
that have not.
Walmart (WMT),
the world's largest retailer, on Thursday acknowledged that its
low-income shoppers continue to struggle in the economy and issued an
outlook for the fourth quarter -- which encompasses the holiday shopping
period -- that falls below Wall Street estimates. On the same day, its
smaller rival Target (TGT), which caters to more affluent shoppers, said it expects results during the quarter to exceed the Street's projections.
The two discounters offer valuable insight into how Americans will
spend in November and December, a period that's traditionally the
busiest shopping period of the year. Some merchants depend on the
holiday shopping season for up to 40 percent of their annual sales, but
economists watch the period closely to get a temperature reading on the
overall mood of American consumers.
The forecasts seem
to confirm a trend that has taken shape during the economic downturn.
Well-heeled shoppers spend more freely as the economy begins to show new
signs of life, while consumers in the lower-income brackets continue to
hold tight to their purse strings even as the housing and stock markets
rebound.
Walmart and Target both are discounters, but
they cater to different customers. Walmart, which says its customers'
average household income ranges from $30,000 to $60,000, hammers its
low-price message and focuses on stocking basics like tee shirts and
underwear along with household goods. But Target, whose customers have a
median household income of $64,000 a year, is known for carrying
discounted designer clothes and home decor under the same roof as
detergent and dishwashing liquid.
NYTimes | On a clear morning in May, Ron Douglas left his home in exurban Denver, eased into his Toyota pickup truck and drove to a business meeting at a Starbucks. Douglas, a bearded bear of a man, ordered a venti double-chocolate-chip Frappuccino — “the girliest drink ever,” he called it — and then sat down to discuss the future of the growing survivalist industry.
Many so-called survivalists would take pride in keeping far away from places that sell espresso drinks. But Douglas, a 38-year-old entrepreneur and founder of one of the largest preparedness expos in the country, isn’t your typical prepper.
At that morning’s meeting, a strategy session with two new colleagues, Douglas made it clear that he doesn’t even like the word “survivalist.” He believes the word is ruined, evoking “the nut job who lives out in the mountains by himself on the retreat.” Instead, he prefers “self-reliance.”
When prompted by his colleagues to define the term, Douglas leaned forward in his chair. “I’m glad you asked,” he replied. “Take notes. This is good.”
For the next several minutes, Douglas talked about emergency preparedness, sustainable living and financial security — what he called the three pillars of self-reliance. He detailed the importance of solar panels, gardens, water storage and food stockpiles. People shouldn’t just have 72-hour emergency kits for when the power grid goes down; they should learn how to live on their own. It’s a message that Douglas is trying to move from the fringe to the mainstream.
“Our main goal is to reach as many people and get the word out to as many people as we can, to get them thinking and moving in this direction,” he said. “Sound good?”
The preparedness industry, always prosperous during hard times, is thriving again now. In Douglas’s circles, people talk about “the end of the world as we know it” with such regularity that the acronym Teotwawki (tee-ought-wah-kee) has come into widespread use. The Vivos Group, which sells luxury bunkers, until recently had a clock on its Web site that was ticking down to Dec. 21, 2012 — a date that, thanks to the Mayan calendar, some believe will usher in the end times. But amid the alarmism, there is real concern that the world is indeed increasingly fragile — a concern highlighted most recently by Hurricane Sandy. The storm’s aftermath has shown just how unprepared most of us are to do without the staples of modern life: food, fuel, transportation and electric power.Fist tap Arnach.
wikipedia | The Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists, known by foreigners as the Boxers, or "Yihe Magic Boxing", was a secret society founded in the northern coastal province of Shandong consisting largely of people who had lost their livelihoods due to imperialism and natural disasters.[6] The group originated from the Lí sect of the Ba gua religion group.[7] Foreigners came to call the well-trained, athletic young men "Boxers" due to the martial arts and calisthenics they practiced. The Boxers' primary feature was spirit possession, which involved "the whirling of swords, violent prostrations, and chanting incantations to Taoist and Buddhist spirits."[8]
The Boxers believed that through training, diet, martial arts, and
prayer they could perform extraordinary feats, such as flight. Further,
they popularly claimed that millions of spirit soldiers would
descend from the heavens and assist them in purifying China of foreign
influences. The Boxers consisted of local farmers/peasants and other
workers who were made desperate by disastrous floods and widespread
opium addiction and laid the blame on Christian missionaries, Chinese
Christians, and the Europeans colonizing their country. Missionaries
were protected under the policy of extraterritoriality. Chinese Christians were alleged also to have filed false lawsuits.[9] The Boxers called foreigners "Guizi" (鬼子, literally: demons),
a deprecatory term, and condemned Chinese Christian converts and
Chinese working for foreigners. The Boxers were only lightly armed with
rifles and swords, claiming supernatural invulnerability towards blows of cannon, rifle gunshots, and knife attacks. The Boxers were typical of millennarian movements, such as the American Indian Ghost Dance, often rising in societies under extreme stress.[10]
Several secret societies in Shandong predated the Boxers. In 1895,
Yuxian, a Manchu who was then prefect of Caozhou and would later become
provincial governor, acquired the help of the Big Sword Society
in fighting against bandits. Although the Big Swords had heterodox
practices, they were not seen as bandits by Chinese authorities. Their
efficiency in defeating banditry led to a flood of cases overwhelming
the magistrates' courts, to which the Big Swords responded by executing
the bandits that were apprehended.[11]
The Big Swords relentlessly hunted the bandits, but the bandits
converted to Catholic Christianity, gaining them legal immunity from
prosecution and also placed them under the protection of the foreigners.
The Big Swords responded by attacking bandit Catholic churches and
burning them.[12]
As a result, Yuxian executed several Big Sword leaders, but did not
punish anyone else. More secret societies started emerging after this.[13]
The early years saw a variety of village activities, not a broad
movement or a united purpose. Like the Red Boxing school or the Plum
Flower Boxers, the Boxers of Shandong were more concerned with
traditional social and moral values, such as filial piety, than with
foreign influences. One leader, for instance, Zhu Hongdeng (Red Lantern
Zhu), started as a wandering healer, specializing in skin ulcers, and
gained wide respect by refusing payment for his treatments.[14] Zhu claimed descent from Ming dynasty
Emperors, since his surname was the surname of the Ming Imperial
Family. He announced that his goal was to "Revive the Qing and destroy
the foreigners" ("Fu Qing mie yang").[15]
It starts with piracy in the Caribbean, which gives way to growing sugar
there - and forcing slaves from Africa to work them. Trade with India
brings wealth to men like Robert Clive who progress from trader to
governor. The empire grows piecemeal as chartered companies take over
large tracts of foreign territory - answering only to head office in the
City of London. Illegal opium sold to China makes a fortune for British
businessmen - but sparks a war with the Chinese emperor.
Druglibrary | IN a vague way, we are familiar with the "opium evil" in China, and some of
us have hazy ideas as to how it came about. The China Year Book for 1916 has this to say
on the subject: "The poppy has been known in China for 12 centuries, and its
medicinal use for 9 centuries. . . . It was not until the middle of the 17th century that
the practice of mixing opium with tobacco for smoking purposes was introduced into China.
This habit was indulged in by the Dutch in Java, and by them taken to Formosa, whence it
spread to Amoy and the mainland generally. There is no record to show when opium was first
smoked by itself, but it is thought to have originated about the end of the 18th century.
Foreign opium was first introduced by the Portuguese from Goa at the beginning of the 18th
century. In 1729, when the foreign import was 200 chests, the Emperor Yung Ching issued
the first anti-opium edict, enacting severe penalties on the sale of opium and the opening
of opium-smoking divans. The importation, however, continued to increase, and by 1790 it
amounted to over 4,000 chests annually. In 1796 opium smoking was again prohibited, and in
1800 the importation of foreign opium was again declared illegal. Opium was now
contraband, but the fact had no effect on the quantity introduced into the country, which
rose to 5,000 chests in 1820; 16,000 chests in 1830; 20,000 chests in 1838, and 70,000
chests in 1858."
The China Year Book makes no mention of the traders who carried these chests of opium
into China. The opium came from India, however, and the increase in importation
corresponds with the British occupation of India, and the golden days of the East India
Company. "Opium was now contraband, but that fact had no effect on the quantity
introduced into the country," smuggled in wholesale by the enterprising British
traders.
China was powerless to protect herself from this menace, either by protests or
prohibition. And as more and more of the drug was smuggled in, and more and more of the
people became victims of the habit, the Chinese finally had a tea-party, very much like
our Boston Tea Party, but less successful in outcome. In 1839, in spite of the fact that
opium smoking is an easy habit to acquire and had been extensively encouraged, the British
traders found themselves with 20,000 chests of unsold opium on their store-ships, just
below Canton. The Chinese had repeatedly appealed to the British Government to stop these
imports, but the British Government had turned a persistently deaf ear. Therefore the
Emperor determined to deal with the matter on his own account. He sent a powerful official
named Lin to attend to it, and Lin had a sort of Boston Tea Party, as we have said, and
destroyed some twenty thousand chests of opium in a very drastic way. Mr. H. Wells
Williams describes it thus: "The opium was destroyed in the most thorough manner, by
mixing it in parcels Of 200 chests, in trenches, with lime and salt water, and then
drawing off the contents into an adjacent creek at low tide."
After this atrocity, followed the first Opium War, when British ships sailed up the
river, seized port after port, and bombarded and took Canton. Her ships sailed up the
Yangtsze, and captured the tribute junks going up the Grand Canal with revenue to Peking,
thus stopping a great part of China's income. Peace was concluded in 1843, and Great
Britain came out well. She recompensed herself by taking the island of Hongkong; an
indemnity Of 21 million dollars, and Canton, Amoy, Foochow, Ningpo and Shanghai were
opened up as "treaty ports"-for the importation of opium and the
"open-door" in general.
Mr. Wells, in his "Middle Kingdom" describes the origin of this first war
with England: "This war was extraordinary in its origin as growing chiefly out of a
commercial misunderstanding; remarkable in its course as being waged between strength and
weakness, conscious superiority and ignorant pride; melancholy in its end as forcing the
weaker to pay for opium within its borders against all its laws, thus paralyzing the
little moral power its feeble government could exert to protect its subjects. . . . It was
a turning point in the national life of the Chinese race, but the compulsory payment of
six million dollars for the opium destroyed has left a stigma upon the English name."
He also says, "The conflict was now fairly begun; its issue between the parties so
unequally matched --one having almost nothing but the right on its side, the other
assisted by every material and physical advantage-could easily be foreseen" and
again, after speaking of it as being unjust and immoral, he concludes "Great Britain,
the first Christian power, really waged this war against the pagan monarch who had only
endeavored to put down a vice harmful to his people. The war was looked upon in this light
by the Chinese; it will always be so looked upon by the candid historian, and known as the
Opium War."
Within fifteen years after this first war, there was another one, and again Great
Britain came off victorious. China had to pay another indemnity, three million dollars,
and five more treaty ports were opened up. By the terms of the Treaty of Tientsin, the
sale of opium in China was legalized in 1858.
From a small pamphlet, "Opium: England's Coercive Policy and Its Disastrous
Results in China and India" by the Rev. John Liggins, we find the following: "As
a specimen of how both wars were carried on, we quote the following from an English writer
on the bombardment of Canton: 'Field pieces loaded with grape were planted at the end of
long, narrow streets crowded with innocent men, women and children, to mow them down like
grass till the gutters flowed with their blood.' In one scene of carnage, the Times
correspondent recorded that half an army of 10,ooo men were in ten minutes destroyed by
the sword, or forced into the broad river. " The Morning Herald " asserted that
"a more horrible or revolting crime than this bombardment of Canton has never been
committed in the worst ages of barbaric darkness."
Naturally, therefore, after the termination of these two wars, China gave up the
struggle. She had fought valiantly to protect her people from opium, but the resources of
a Christian nation were too much for her. Seeing therefore that the opium trade was to be
forced upon her, and that her people were doomed to degradation, she decided to plant
poppies herself. There should be competition at least, and the money should not all be
drained out of the country. Thus it came about that after 1858 extensive tracts of land
were given over to poppy production. Whole provinces or parts of provinces, ceased to grow
grain and other necessities, and diverted their rich river bottoms to the raising of
opium. Chinese opium, however, never supplanted Indian opium, being inferior to that
raised in the rich valley of the Ganges. The country merely had double quantities of the
drug, used straight or blended, to suit the purse or taste of the consumer.
Then, in 1906, the incredible happened. After over a hundred years of steady
demoralization, with half her population opium addicts, or worse still, making enormous
profits out of the trade, China determined to give up opium. In all history, no nation has
ever set itself such a gigantic task, with such a gigantic handicap. China, a country of
immense distances, with scant means of communication; with no common language, a land
where only the scholars can read and write, suddenly decided to free herself from this
vice. The Emperor issued an edict saying that in ten years' time all opium traffic must
cease, and an arrangement was made with Great Britain whereby this might be accomplished.
To the honor of America be it said that we assisted China in this resolution. We agreed to
see her through.
A bargain was then made between China and Great Britain, in 1907, China agreeing to
diminish poppy cultivation year by year for a period of ten years, and Great Britain
agreeing to a proportional decrease in the imports of Indian opium. A three years' test
was first agreed to, a trial of China's sincerity and ability, for Great Britain feared
that this was but a ruse to cut off Indian opium, while leaving China's opium alone in the
field. At the end of three years, however, China had proved her ability to cope with the
situation. Thus, for a period of ten years, both countries have lived up to their bargain,
the amount of native and foreign opium declining steadily in a decreasing scale. April 1,
1917, saw the end of the accomplishment.
China's part was most difficult. In the remote, interior provinces, poppies were grown
surreptitiously, connived at by corrupt officials who made money from the crops. However,
drastic laws were enacted and severe penalties imposed upon those who broke them. If poppy
cultivation could not be stopped, England would not hold to her end of the bargain. Not
only was there a nation of addicts to deal with, but these could obtain copious supplies
of opium from the foreign concessions, over which the Chinese had no control. We shall
show, in another article, to what extent this was carried on. Yet somehow, in some manner,
the impossible happened. Year by year, little by little, one province after another was
freed from poppy cultivation, until in 1917, China was practically free from the
native-grown drug, and foreign importation had practically ended.
In this manner, first by large smuggling, then by two opium wars, was China drugged
with opium. And in this manner, and to this extent, has she succeeded in freeing herself
from the curse. But in one way, she is not free. She has no control over the
extra-territorial holdings of European powers, for in each treaty port are the foreign
concessions already mentioned-German, Austrian, British, French, Russian. And in these
concessions, opium may be procured. Simply by crossing an imaginary line, in such cities
as Shanghai and Hongkong, can the Chinese buy as much opium as they choose. China will
never be rid of this menace till she is rid of these extraterritorial holdings. Opium
shops, licensed by foreign governments, are always ready to supply her people with the
forbidden drug.
We say that the China market is closed. So it is, in one way. But the British Opium
Monopoly is not ended. The year 1917 saw a tremendous blow dealt to the British opium
dealers, but other markets will be found. There are other countries than China whose
inhabitants can be taught this vice. The object of this discussion is to consider these
other countries, and to see to what extent the world is menaced by this possibility.
theatlantic | The white working class depends on government assistance more than
the population as a whole, yet its members heavily favor smaller
government and lower taxes -- and they strongly believe that the poor
are too dependent on government programs.
Nearly half of the white working class (46 percent) reported receiving
Social Security or disability benefits in the poll, versus 38 percent of
the overall population; they were also slightly more likely to receive
food stamps and unemployment benefits than the general population. Six
in 10 white working-class voters said the federal government should cut
back on services and reduce taxes. And three-fourths agreed with the
idea that "poor people have become too dependent on government
assistance programs." If Romney is able to get past his "47 percent"
comments, this may be why: Even those who frequently depend on
government strongly dislike the idea of dependency and entitlement.
The white working class has often been depicted as the backbone of the
Tea Party, angered by what they perceive as Obama's socialistic policies
and, in the president's own memorable phrase, "clinging to guns or religion." But the poll knocks down some of these myths:
* They're not the Tea Party: Only about 13 percent of
white working-class voters consider themselves part of the Tea Party,
and 34 percent say they share its values. Among college-educated whites,
the numbers are about the same -- 10 percent and 31 percent,
respectively.
* They're not unusually religious: About half (48
percent) go to church at least once a month, and 60 percent say religion
is important to them. That's about the same as the general population.
The white working class is more heavily evangelical, however -- 36
percent describe themselves as evangelicals, versus 21 percent of the
overall population.
* They're not culture warriors: On the wedge issues of
abortion and same-sex marriage, white working-class voters are pretty
evenly divided. They favor abortion being legal in all or most cases, 50
percent to 45 percent, and oppose allowing gays to marry, 50 percent to
43 percent. Less than 5 percent of these voters said abortion or gay
marriage was the most important issue, as opposed to 53 percent who
cited the economy.
* They want to tax the rich: Contra Joe the Plumber,
these voters aren't opposed to spreading the wealth around. "In fact,
white working-class Americans display a strong strain of economic
populism," the report states: 70 percent of them believe the economic
system unfairly favors the wealthy, and 62 percent want to raise taxes
on incomes over $1 million. And there's a clear reason both candidates
have accused each other of favoring outsourcing: 78 percent of white
working-class voters blame corporations moving jobs overseas for
America's economic woes.
yahoo | After two days of meetings at the
Republican Governors Association conference this week, New Mexico Gov.
Susana Martinez heard a lot about the party's need to reach new
constituencies--particularly women and ethnic minorities--but few
specifics about how.
As a Republican governor of
Mexican descent who won all but four counties in a Democratic state,
Martinez has ideas for how the party can reach voters who traditionally
support Democrats. But it's going to take some work--and a touch of
humility--from her colleagues.
"Republicans need to stop making
assumptions, and they need to start talking to younger people, people
of color, and ask them--not talk to them--ask
them, What is it that we can do better? How do we earn your vote? How
do we earn the ability for you to see that we can be the party that
will make your life better and that of your children?" Martinez said in
an interview after the conference here. "But we can't be the ones that
come and tell them how things are going to be and how we have all the
solutions."
President Barack Obama in 2012
expanded his lead among Hispanics, black voters, Asians and women,
according to exit polling, leaving many Republicans wondering what they
need do to adapt to the nation's rapidly shifting demographics.
The topic has dominated much of
the party's post-election soul searching. Some have placed part of the
blame on the Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, who wrote off nearly half
the electorate as inevitable Obama voters when he told donors at a
closed-door fundraiser last spring that 47 percent of the population
would support Obama "no matter what." Martinez criticized Romney's
comments when they were reported in September, and on Wednesday
reiterated that she found them "ridiculous."
"It's a ridiculous statement to
make. You want to earn the vote of every single person you can earn,
whether they be someone who relies on," she said. "Why would you ever
write off 47 percent?"
Romney quotes Cleon Skausen
, boasts passionately about being a bishop and state leader in his church, the second coming in Jerusalem and Missouri, jes dayyum...., is it any wonder this cat couldn't run as himself?!?
NYTimes | Mr. Humphries, who was identified on Wednesday by law enforcement
colleagues, took the initial complaint from Jill Kelley, a Tampa woman
active in local military circles and a personal friend, about anonymous
e-mails that accused her of inappropriately flirtatious behavior toward
Mr. Petraeus.
The subsequent cyberstalking investigation uncovered an extramarital
affair between Mr. Petraeus and Paula Broadwell, his biographer, who
agents determined had sent the anonymous e-mails. It also ensnared Gen.
John R. Allen, the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, after F.B.I.
agents discovered what a law enforcement official said on Wednesday
were sexually explicit e-mail exchanges between him and Ms. Kelley.
A spokesman for Ms. Kelley provided her version of events in two
conference calls with reporters on Wednesday. Ms. Kelley’s concern when
she took the e-mails to Mr. Humphries was that she feared the sender was
“stalking” Mr. Petraeus and General Allen, said the spokesman, who
asked not to be identified.
“She asks the agent, ‘What do you make of this?’ ” the spokesman said.
“The agent said: ‘This is serious. They seem to know the comings and
goings of a couple of generals.’ ”
General Allen himself had received a similar anonymous e-mail message,
sent by someone identified as “kelleypatrol,” advising him to stay away
from Ms. Kelley. The general forwarded it to Ms. Kelley, and they
discussed a concern that someone was cyberstalking them.
On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said he had asked the
Senate to postpone a confirmation hearing for General Allen’s next
assignment while the department’s inspector general reviewed his e-mail
correspondence with Ms. Kelley, which was discovered by F.B.I. agents
investigating her initial complaint.
Pentagon officials said the review covered more than 10,000 pages of
documents that included “inappropriate” messages. But associates of
General Allen have said that the two exchanged about a dozen e-mails a
week since meeting two years ago and that his messages were affectionate
but platonic.
A law enforcement official, speaking on the condition of anonymity,
disputed that assertion on Wednesday, saying some messages were clearly
sexual. Investigators were confident “the nature of the content
warranted passing them on” to the inspector general, the official said.
National Journal | They were said to be generals cut from the same cloth, David Petraeus and John Allen: whip-smart, adaptable, erudite and above reproach.
Indeed Allen was Petraeus’s hand-picked successor in Afghanistan, having
served as deputy commander at Centcom in Tampa, Fla., first under
Petraeus, then under Marine Gen. James Mattis. Petraeus and Allen, the
soldier and the Marine, represented, in other words, the very best that
the U.S. military has to offer.
And yet, in less than a week, the careers of two very different men
may be ruined as a result of alleged inappropriate behavior with women.
It was scandalous enough when Petraeus stepped down as CIA director
after an FBI investigation uncovered his extramarital affair with his
biographer, Paula Broadwell. The latest hairpin plot twist came early
Tuesday when the Defense Department abruptly announced that the
nomination of Allen, the outgoing commander in Afghanistan, to be
commander of NATO forces was “on hold” pending an investigation by the
FBI and the Pentagon inspector general related to his relationship with
Jill Kelley – the woman who kicked off the FBI probe by reporting
threatening emails she had received from Broadwell, and who has denied
having any relationship with Petraeus beyond family friend.
A senior U.S. defense official told National Journal on
Tuesday that investigators are now looking into “potentially
inappropriate communications” between Allen and Kelley, 37, a doctor’s
wife who worked at Centcom in Florida. According to The Washington Post,
in the course of the Petraeus-Broadwell probe, the FBI uncovered
between 20,000 and 30,000 documents — most of them e-mails —shared
between Kelley and Allen.
In the end, Petraeus’ downfall marks the formal finish to a career
that had in some ways passed its peak. The influence of his signature
contribution to U.S. military doctrine—expensive counterinsurgency
programs that take years to implement, with little to show in the way of
results, as in Afghanistan —has been fading.
As for Allen, his tenure in Afghanistan is proving at least as
troubled as Petraeus’, beset by “green-on-blue” attacks by Afghan
soldiers and officials on allied troops, and a stubborn Taliban
supported by Pakistani elements across the border.
During a visit to Afghanistan I made last May, he came across as
sober and largely humorless in manner as he described in intellectual
terms his strategic plans in Afghanistan. “There is this sense, and it’s
a very Western sense I think, that there is a Napoleonic decisive
battle that tends to end wars. In counterinsurgency, it’s much less
about that than about creating an enduring capacity that grows and
compounds on itself over time," Allen said. "And that’s what’s
happened.”
He was far less of a glamorous or show-boating figure than Petraeus.
Nevertheless, he’s now one of the leading men in a national soap opera.
slate | Using the dead-drop tactic can
certainly reduce the chances that sweeping surveillance dragnets will
gobble up your communications—but it is not exactly secure. The method was used by the planners of the Madrid train bombings
in 2004, which killed 191 people, helping them to operate below the
radar of Big Brother. However, law enforcement agencies over the years
have grown accustomed to terrorists using the dead drop, and
technologies have been developed to help counter it.
An interception tool developed by the networking company Zimbra, for
instance, was specifically designed to help combat email dead drops. Zimbra’s “legal Intercept” technology allows law enforcement agencies to obtain “copies of email messages
that are sent, received, or saved as drafts from targeted accounts.” An
account that is under surveillance, with the help of Zimbra’s
technology, will secretly forward all of its messages, including drafts,
to a “shadow account” used by law enforcement. This may have been how
the FBI was able to keep track of all correspondence being exchanged
between Petraeus and Broadwell.
(It’s also worth noting that archived draft emails stored alongside
sent and received messages on Google’s servers can actually be obtained
by law enforcement with very little effort. Due to the outdated Electronic and Communications and Privacy Act, any content stored in the cloud can be obtained by the government without a warrant if it’s older than six months, as Wiredreported last year.)
What this means is that if Petraeus and Broadwell had been savvy
enough to use encryption and anonymity tools, their affair would
probably never have been exposed. If they had taken advantage of PGP encryption,
the FBI would have been able to decipher their randy interactions only
after deploying Trojan-style spyware onto Broadwell’s computer. Further
still, if the lovers had only ever logged into their pseudonymous Gmail
accounts using anonymity tools like Tor, their real IP addresses would have been masked and their identities extremely difficult to uncover.
But then it is unlikely that they ever expected to come under FBI
surveillance. Their crime was a moral one, not a felony, so there was no
real reason to take extra precautions. In any other adulterous
relationship a pseudonym and a dead drop would be more than enough to
keep it clandestine, as my Slate colleague Farhad Manjoo noted in an email.
Broadwell slipped up when she sent the harassing emails—as that, as
far as we know, is what ended up exposing her and Petraeus to
surveillance. Whether the harassment was serious enough to merit email
monitoring is still to be established, as Emily Bazelon writes on “XX Factor.” It goes without saying, however, that the real error
here was ultimately made by Petraeus. If he had stayed faithful to his
wife of 38 years in the first place, he’d still be in charge at the
CIA—and I wouldn’t be writing about how he could have kept his adultery
secret more effectively by using encryption.
guardian | So not only did the FBI - again, all without any real evidence of a
crime - trace the locations and identity of Broadwell and Petreaus, and
read through Broadwell's emails (and possibly Petraeus'), but they also
got their hands on and read through 20,000-30,000 pages of emails
between Gen. Allen and Kelley.
This is a surveillance state run
amok. It also highlights how any remnants of internet anonymity have
been all but obliterated by the union between the state and technology
companies.
But, as unwarranted and invasive as this all is, there
is some sweet justice in having the stars of America's national security
state destroyed by the very surveillance system which they implemented
and over which they preside. As Trevor Timm of the Electronic Frontier
Foundation put it this morning: "Who knew the key to stopping the Surveillance State was to just wait until it got so big that it ate itself?"
It
is usually the case that abuses of state power become a source for
concern and opposition only when they begin to subsume the elites who
are responsible for those abuses. Recall how former Democratic Rep. Jane
Harman - one of the most outspoken defenders of the illegal Bush
National Security Agency (NSA) warrantless eavesdropping program - suddenly began sounding like an irate, life-long ACLU privacy activist when it was revealed that the NSA had eavesdropped on her private communications
with a suspected Israeli agent over alleged attempts to intervene on
behalf of AIPAC officials accused of espionage. Overnight, one of the
Surveillance State's chief assets, the former ranking member of the
House Intelligence Committee, transformed into a vocal privacy proponent
because now it was her activities, rather than those of powerless
citizens, which were invaded.
With the private, intimate
activities of America's most revered military and intelligence officials
being smeared all over newspapers and televisions for no good reason,
perhaps similar conversions are possible. Put another way, having the
career of the beloved
CIA Director and the commanding general in Afghanistan instantly
destroyed due to highly invasive and unwarranted electronic surveillance
is almost enough to make one believe not only that there is a god, but
that he is an ardent civil libertarian.
The US operates a sprawling, unaccountable Surveillance State
that - in violent breach of the core guarantees of the Fourth Amendment
- monitors and records virtually everything even the most law-abiding
citizens do. Just to get a flavor for how pervasive it is, recall that
the Washington Post, in its 2010 three-part "Top Secret America" series,
reported:
"Every day, collection systems at the National Security Agency
intercept and store 1.7 billion e-mails, phone calls and other types of
communications."
Two more guerilla libraries in Hoboken, NJ
-
This is a follow-up to my Saturday post on guerilla libraries.
Here’s the Little Free Library located at 935 Bloomfield Ave. At that part
of town Bloomf...
A Foundation of Joy
-
Two years and I've lost count of how many times my eye has been operated
on, either beating the fuck out of the tumor, or reattaching that slippery
eel ...
April Three
-
4/3
43
When 1 = A and 26 = Z
March = 43
What day?
4 to the power of 3 is 64
64th day is March 5
My birthday
March also has 5 letters.
4 x 3 = 12
...
Return of the Magi
-
Lately, the Holy Spirit is in the air. Emotional energy is swirling out of
the earth.I can feel it bubbling up, effervescing and evaporating around
us, s...
New Travels
-
Haven’t published on the Blog in quite a while. I at least part have been
immersed in the area of writing books. My focus is on Science Fiction an
Historic...
Covid-19 Preys Upon The Elderly And The Obese
-
sciencemag | This spring, after days of flulike symptoms and fever, a man
arrived at the emergency room at the University of Vermont Medical Center.
He ...
.jpg)
The current visit of Menachem
Begin, leader of this party, to the United States is obviously calculated
to give the impression of American support for his party in the coming
Israeli elections, and to cement political ties with conservative Zionist
elements in the United States. Several Americans of national repute have
lent their names to welcome his visit. It is inconceivable that those who
oppose fascism throughoutthe world, if correctly informed as to Mr. Begin's
political record and perspectives, could add their names and support to
the movement he represents.
