to fathom hell or soar angelic, just take a pinch of psychedelic

whale | Psychedelics are the Fourth way spiritual path and people with this knowledge we call Shamans, although they may not.  The main LSD and Ketamine explorer and writer was John Lilly while Timothy Leary was the main man who spread the word about LSD with brilliant communication skills such as this interview: 1966 Timothy Leary interview.  The classic books are 'The Centre of the Cyclone (see original cover below)' by John Lilly, 'The Politics of Ecstasy' and 'Neuropolitics' by Timothy Leary.  Psychedelics have been suppressed by killing off the people with that knowledge, called Shamans and some Witches, and outlawing their use.  

These are called Power Plants or an Ally of Man by the Deer Tribe Metis-Medicine Society and Don Juan, the best ally after men, and can bestow immense personal Power if used wisely, partly by giving Visions and Knowledge, but also by being the greatest Aphrodisiacs, whose main gift is to open the Heart chakra and bestow great love/tenderness and intimacy, along with increased energy and pleasure, leading to great contentment and peace.  They also throw a big spanner into the works of the Mind Control agenda, put lucidly by Terence McKenna (although many users are Pyjama persons, they have a spirituality about them which is the greatest gift of psychedelics--spirituality).  This is is why Alcohol is that agenda's drug of choice, for us, along with Cocaine and Methamphetaminee (crystal meth) which opens you up to Possession, not forgetting all the Psychiatry nightmares, the biggest drug Addiction problem of all time. Cannabis prohibition feeds 50% of the Prison Industrial complex and costs $10 billion to enforce every year (USA) with an estimated $8 Billion in lost sales.  Psilocybin, LSD, or Ketamine would cut prison returns dramatically (Tim Leary cut the prison recidivism rate from 70% to 10% using Psilocybin) along with curing Alcoholism (Peyote on the Brain: Nature's Cure for Alcoholism, Ketamine Psychedelic Therapy), most other diseases with Cannabis Oil ("Our research indicates that hemp oil is an effective cure or control for practically any disease known to man"--- Rick Simpson), and other spiritual diseases such as despair from lack of Spirituality/Knowledge that feeds criminality, and cut the supply to Prison Inc from Alcohol abuse, and robbery from Methamphetamine Cocaine & Heroin abuse.

The Huichol Indians high up in the Sierra Madre Mountains of central-west MexicoHigh Sierra Indians, walk 400 miles every year to collect Peyote and then spend a few weeks, no doubt, crossing what Don Juan called the 'barriers of affection', or 'talking to Jesus' (your higher self or Spirit) to use Quanah Parker's term (Native American Church).  This would also destroy organised Religion and severely undermine the Church of Allopathy (Alcohol abuse fills most hospital beds), the two pillars propping up The Cult of Authority.  No wonder they are all illegal!!]

ice, ice, baby too cold....,

zerohedge | While the NSA is busy justifying its spying of every American its existence thanks to famous Moscow resident Edward Snowden, its Russian counterparts have been busy intercepting even more phone Ukrainian conversations. 

After a month ago a leaked phone call between US assistant secretary of state Victoria Nuland and the US envoy to the Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt confirmed that it was the US that was pulling the strings in what was about to be a violent coup overthrowing Ukraine's president Yanukovich, "someone" has just leaked another phone conversation, this time between parliamentarian Nestor Shufrych and former PM and ideological leader of the Ukraine "revolution" Yulia Tymoshenko and most probable future president of West Ukraine, in which Tymoshenko is makes the following threats, "It’s going too far! Bugger! We must grab arms and go whack those damn katsaps [a Ukrainian word used to refer to the Russians in a negative tone] together with their leader", "I’ll use all my connections, I’ll raise the whole world – as soon as I’m able to – in order to make sure.. Bugger!.. not even scorched earth won’t remain where Russia stands" although all her empty threats collapse in the last sentence of the phone conversation in which she says, regarding the Crimea annexation, that "we are going to take it to the Hague International Criminal Court." Good luck with that. 

But the smoking gun, and where Putin once again shows just how masterful of a chess player he is, is the following statement by Tymoshenko, after asked, rhetorically, by her counterparty, "what should we do now with the 8 million Russians that stayed in Ukraine. They are outcasts"... to which she replies: "They must be killed with nuclear weapons." 

Needless to say, that is not how you make Russian friends, or diffuse geopolitical tensions with your superpower neighbor, who just happens to be set on recreating USSR 2.0. Because just like that Putin has his provocation carte blanche, as the second something, anything happens to any ethnic Russian in east Ukraine, Putin can point to precisely this conversation as proof of how Ukraine's "government" feels toward the ethnic minorities in the east, and why "they deserve to be protected" the Russian bearhug. Which has been precisely Putin's plan all along. 

It is not surprising that after this recording was leaked, that Tymoshenko admitted the validity of the recording except for this part, because she knows just how greatly it can and will be used against her once Putin decides it is time to expand a little further beyond just Crimea.

is valodya putting europe on the brink of WW-III?

20Committee |  The Parisian daily Le Figaro has run an interesting interview about the situation in Ukraine with retired General Ihor Smeshko, who is well positioned to understand the realities at play. Once a Soviet Army officer, Smeshko served as Ukraine’s military attache in the United States in the 1990s, was promoted to general, then was head of military intelligence (HUR) from 1997 to 2000. He subsequently served as chief of the Security Service (SBU), Ukraine’s domestic intelligence agency, from 2003 to 2005. While Smeshko is a somewhat controversial character, he remains active in politics and his insights on the current crisis merit consideration. The interview follows in toto, with my comments after.

Q: Moscow has annexed Crimea, and Ukrainian troops are to leave the peninsula. How do you feel?

A: I feel enormous humiliation. I have been an officer, first in the Soviet Army, then in Ukraine’s. Never could I have imagined what’s going on. Vladimir Putin is making a terrible mistake. In the long term, the aggression that Russia has committed will catch up with it, and will perhaps lead to its disintegration. What is more, I do not want to come out against Russia in general, nor do I want to lump the great Russian people — Tolstoy, Pushkin, and the others — together with Putin. Putin has opened  Pandora’s Box by breaching the bilateral treaty that recognized Ukraine’s frontiers in exchange for our giving up nuclear weapons in 1994. What will Russia do if China decides to protect the millions of Chinese already living in Siberia by annexing that territory? As I see it, Moscow is very afraid of a European-style democracy in Ukraine, which would put ideas into the Russian people’s heads.

Q: Putin is asserting that Ukraine is a geographical concept, not a nation.

A: Putin understands nothing about Ukraine. When he dared to claim that Russia won World War II without the Ukrainians, it was a terrible slap in the face. What about the seven million Ukrainians who gave their lives? Putin knows nothing about it and surrounds himself with servile advisers. He is unaware that the Ukrainians are old Russians, but bred on the freedom of the Zaporozhian Cossacks, who never submitted to serfdom. He cannot conquer us, but he has wounded us and has thus fallen afoul of the nation that gave the Tsarist empire its best troops. I know something about that: We have been soldiers, father and son, for five generations on my mother’s side. Instead of acting with the European Union to help the young Ukrainian state become democratic and prosperous – to build a bridge between Europe and Russia and make de Gaulle’s fantastic dream of a Europe stretching from the Atlantic to the Urals come true – Russia’s leadership has conducted military aggression against the territory of a sovereign state. It is placing Europe on the verge of a Third World War.

Q: Could the Ukrainian Army hold out in the event Russian troops enter eastern Ukraine?

A: Russia stands no chance of winning a war against Ukraine. To be sure, Ukraine is weakened by the twenty years it has spent laying the foundations of its state and by the total corruption of the machinery of that state. That is why part of the population has risen up against [ex-President] Viktor Yanukovych’s regime. Of course, we lack well-equipped divisions for the time being, but Russian ground forces are not in great shape. Russia has mobilized 150,000 men on our borders, but it’s not in a position to wage an offensive war against Ukraine or to occupy our territory. When the USSR fell apart, there was a highly trained military force of one million men here. Ukraine, for its part, has 700,000 reservists it can mobilize. Mobilization is under way. My twenty-one-year old son, who is a reserve lieutenant, has dropped out of university to sign up. If it persists in its adventure, Russia will stand no chance against a defense force of partisans.

Q: You say Crimea will remain Ukrainian, but former Georgian President Saakashvili said the same about South Ossetia.

A: We are not Georgia. For instance, part of the Russian nuclear shield is currently undergoing technical checks in a Ukrainian factory, Yuzhmash. We have not said to date that we are going to cease all cooperation, but that might change. Given our scientific expertise, we could even decide to resume building nuclear weapons.

do you remember this little vignette straight out of ian fleming?

radiofreeurope | The case surrounding the apparent poisoning two years ago of Viktor Yushchenko remains shrouded in mystery -- so much so that even Yushchenko himself routinely uses cryptic language to describe it.
Speaking to journalists in Baku on September 8, the Ukrainian president said the investigation into the alleged poisoning in September 2004 was "one step away from the active phase of solving this case."

Yushchenko's statement came as Ukraine's prosecutor-general, Oleksandr Medvedko, announced that investigators had determined the time, place, and circumstances in which the poisoning attempt took place.

All that remains, apparently, is to find the individual, or individuals, responsible.

Dioxin Poisoning

Austrian doctors responsible for examining Yushchenko several months after the poison was reportedly administered said the Ukrainian politician had ingested a concentrated dose of dioxin.

If investigators have in fact traced the time and place of the poisoning, it would mark a significant development in a seemingly stagnant case.


The powerful toxin caused bloating and pockmarks on Yushchenko's face, giving his skin a greenish hue and adding a macabre note to a tumultuous political season culminating in the mass Orange Revolution protests in December 2004.

Prosecutor-General Medvedko, confirming earlier allegations, said tests on the dioxins found in Yushchenko's blood showed they were highly purified and manufactured in either Russia, the United States, or Great Britain.

He declined to divulge other details. If investigators have in fact traced the time and place of the poisoning, it would mark a significant development in a seemingly stagnant case.

Intrigues And Disinformation

The mystery began on September 6, 2004.

Yushchenko, the pro-Western presidential candidate facing off against the Kremlin's preferred nominee, Viktor Yanukovych, became violently ill, suffering severe abdominal pain and facial lesions.

When he was rushed four days later to Vienna's Rudolfinerhaus clinic, his liver, pancreas, and intestines were swollen, and he was barely able to walk.

Doctors were initially baffled. But Yushchenko's supporters already had a theory: that the candidate had been poisoned during a dinner September 5 with Ihor Smeshko, the head of Ukraine's Security Service, at the summer home of Smeshko's deputy, Volodymyr Satsiuk.

Later that month, many were surprised to read a Rudolfinerhaus press release stating doctors did not believe Yushchenko had been poisoned.

But several days later, officials at the Vienna clinic publicly objected, insisting the press release was a forgery -- an episode that conjured up images of a Soviet-style disinformation campaign.

An Easy Target?

By December, doctors had confirmed that dioxin was behind Yushchenko's ailment, and that he had received the substance from a perpetrator who allegedly intended him harm.

Yushchenko's supporters immediately pointed to Yanukovych as the likely suspect, and accused Moscow of providing the dioxin.

modern art was cia weapon

independent | For decades in art circles it was either a rumour or a joke, but now it is confirmed as a fact. The Central Intelligence Agency used American modern art - including the works of such artists as Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko - as a weapon in the Cold War. In the manner of a Renaissance prince - except that it acted secretly - the CIA fostered and promoted American Abstract Expressionist painting around the world for more than 20 years. 

The connection is improbable. This was a period, in the 1950s and 1960s, when the great majority of Americans disliked or even despised modern art - President Truman summed up the popular view when he said: "If that's art, then I'm a Hottentot." As for the artists themselves, many were ex- communists barely acceptable in the America of the McCarthyite era, and certainly not the sort of people normally likely to receive US government backing.

Why did the CIA support them? Because in the propaganda war with the Soviet Union, this new artistic movement could be held up as proof of the creativity, the intellectual freedom, and the cultural power of the US. Russian art, strapped into the communist ideological straitjacket, could not compete.

The existence of this policy, rumoured and disputed for many years, has now been confirmed for the first time by former CIA officials. Unknown to the artists, the new American art was secretly promoted under a policy known as the "long leash" - arrangements similar in some ways to the indirect CIA backing of the journal Encounter, edited by Stephen Spender.

The decision to include culture and art in the US Cold War arsenal was taken as soon as the CIA was founded in 1947. Dismayed at the appeal communism still had for many intellectuals and artists in the West, the new agency set up a division, the Propaganda Assets Inventory, which at its peak could influence more than 800 newspapers, magazines and public information organisations. They joked that it was like a Wurlitzer jukebox: when the CIA pushed a button it could hear whatever tune it wanted playing across the world.

The next key step came in 1950, when the International Organisations Division (IOD) was set up under Tom Braden. It was this office which subsidised the animated version of George Orwell's Animal Farm, which sponsored American jazz artists, opera recitals, the Boston Symphony Orchestra's international touring programme. Its agents were placed in the film industry, in publishing houses, even as travel writers for the celebrated Fodor guides. And, we now know, it promoted America's anarchic avant-garde movement, Abstract Expressionism. Fist tap Bro. Makheru.

jazz was a cia weapon

Dizzy Gillespie in 1956 in Zagreb, in what was then Yugoslavia, with the Yugoslav composer Nikica Kalogjera as passenger

NYTimes | HALF a century ago, when America was having problems with its image during the cold war, Adam Clayton Powell Jr., the United States representative from Harlem, had an idea. Stop sending symphony orchestras and ballet companies on international tours, he told the State Department. Let the world experience what he called “real Americana”: send out jazz bands instead.

A photography exhibition of those concert tours, titled “Jam Session: America’s Jazz Ambassadors Embrace the World,” is on display at the Meridian International Center in Washington through July 13 and then moves to the Community Council for the Arts in Kinston, N.C. There are nearly 100 photos in the show, many excavated from obscure files in dozens of libraries, then digitally retouched and enlarged by James Hershorn, an archivist at the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University. There’s Dizzy Gillespie in 1956, charming a snake with his trumpet in Karachi, Pakistan. Louis Armstrong in ’61, surrounded by laughing children outside a hospital in Cairo. Benny Goodman in ’62, blowing his clarinet in Red Square. Duke Ellington in ’63, smoking a hookah at Ctesiphon in Iraq.

The idea behind the State Department tours was to counter Soviet propaganda portraying the United States as culturally barbaric. Powell’s insight was that competing with the Bolshoi would be futile and in any case unimaginative. Better to show off a homegrown art form that the Soviets couldn’t match — and that was livelier besides. Many jazz bands were also racially mixed, a potent symbol in the mid to late ’50s, when segregation in the South was tarnishing the American image.

Jazz was the country’s “Secret Sonic Weapon” (as a 1955 headline in The New York Times put it) in another sense as well. The novelist Ralph Ellison called jazz an artistic counterpart to the American political system. The soloist can play anything he wants as long as he stays within the tempo and the chord changes — just as, in a democracy, the individual can say or do whatever he wants as long as he obeys the law. Willis Conover, whose jazz show on Voice of America radio went on the air in 1955 and soon attracted 100 million listeners, many of them behind the Iron Curtain, once said that people “love jazz because they love freedom.”

The Jazz Ambassador tours, as they were called, lasted weeks, sometimes months, and made an impact, attracting huge, enthusiastic crowds. A cartoon in a 1958 issue of The New Yorker showed some officials sitting around a table in Washington, one of them saying: “This is a diplomatic mission of the utmost delicacy. The question is, who’s the best man for it — John Foster Dulles or Satchmo?”

Powell arranged for Gillespie, his close friend, to make the State Department’s first goodwill jazz tour, starting out in March 1956 with an 18-piece band and traveling all over southern Europe, the Middle East and south Asia.

lsd was a cia weapon

salon | The idea that LSD could produce mental disorganization encouraged the CIA to start using it in experiments similar to those carried out by the Nazi doctors. CIA operatives began administering the drug in secret to different subject populations (or indeed to each other). Like the Nazis, the CIA used different populations of helpless individuals such as prisoners, drug addicts, and mental patients in their experiments, often with appalling results. The CIA not only performed experiments on individuals but also came up with schemes for contaminating the water supply of potential enemies with LSD so as to incapacitate entire hostile populations. For this they would need large amounts of the drug, at one point ordering the equivalent of 100 million doses from Sandoz. When they found out that obtaining such a large amount as this might be somewhat problematic they turned to Eli Lilly and Company, whose capable chemists broke the secret Sandoz patent and assured the CIA that they could produce LSD in tons or similar amounts. Thankfully for the future of humanity, this eventuality never came to pass. In the end the CIA concluded that the effects of hallucinogenic drugs like LSD were just too unpredictable for general use in the Cold War, and should just be reserved for very specific circumstances. Nevertheless, in the atmosphere of general paranoia that pervaded the postwar era, the CIA maintained an important role in manipulating the developing drug culture. CIA operatives acted as drug suppliers if they were interested in observing drug effects under particular circumstances, and infiltrated different drug-using groups with political points of view deemed to be of “interest” so as to relay information back to Washington.

However, it was not just the CIA who started the nascent drug culture simmering in the United States. As we have seen, Gordon Wasson had published his article on the use of psychedelic mushrooms in Mexico in Life Magazine in 1957, and this was very widely read and discussed. Aldous Huxley was another individual who greatly enhanced the awareness of the potential of psychedelic drug use. His interest in this subject clearly preceded the drug revolution of the 1960s as his famous book “Brave New World,” which had described the use of psychotropic drugs to control an entire society, had been published in 1931. Of course, much of the research on hallucinogenic drugs at the time was not just being performed at the behest of the CIA. There was enormous excitement in the psychiatric community about the possible uses of hallucinogens in psychiatry. Not only was there the idea that these drugs could be psychotomimetic and represented models of psychosis, but simultaneously other theories were being proposed suggesting the potential use of these same drugs in the treatment of mental disorders. Hence, LSD was simultaneously viewed as being psychotomimetic and a treatment for psychosis, reflecting the ferment in the psychiatric research community that the arrival of such a powerful drug had stirred up. LSD-mediated psychotherapy became highly popular and film stars such as Cary Grant were treated in this way, becoming propagandists for the drug.

In the vanguard of LSD research in psychiatry was Humphrey Osmond, whom we have already encountered as the man who introduced the word psychedelic and who, along with John Smythies, suggested the endogenous psychotogen theory of schizophrenia. Osmond attempted to use LSD as a treatment for a variety of disorders such as alcoholism, and claimed to have had considerable success. Aldous Huxley became aware of Osmond’s writings and volunteered to be a subject in one of his experiments. So, in May 1953 Osmond agreed and travelled to Huxley’s home in California to supervise his drug experience. Huxley was duly impressed and continued experimenting with the drug on subsequent occasions. Huxley’s final novel Island, published in 1960, summarized his views on the use of hallucinogens (called moksha in this novel) as an integral part of an ideal society. When he died in 1963 Huxley had his wife administer LSD to him on his deathbed as he slid into the hereafter. Other writers such as the “Beats,” including Allan Ginsberg and William Burroughs, also experimented with hallucinogens. Their book “The Yage Letters” (1963) details their sojourn in South America experimenting with ayahuasca.

It can therefore be seen that in the 1950s hallucinogenic drugs including mescaline, psilocybin, and LSD had become a widely discussed topic in medical, political, and artistic circles. However, in order for the use of hallucinogens to really take off in society in general, something else was needed. Proselytizing leaders were required, and one was soon at hand.

In 1960 Timothy Leary was a 39-year-old psychology lecturer at Harvard. He clearly had a bright career ahead of him, having carried out important basic research in behavioral psychology. Leary read Wasson’s article in Life Magazine and, like many others, was intrigued. That summer he traveled down to Cuernavaca in Mexico with friends and obtained some samples of psilocybin mushrooms. Leary was profoundly impressed with his experience. Basically, he was bored with the kind of life he was leading as a faculty member at Harvard and saw that hallucinogens represented an entirely new path for the exploration of the psyche. Soon after returning to Boston he was sharing psilocybin with students and faculty alike and, together with his colleague Richard Alpert, set up an entire psilocybin-based research project which included “experiments” such as the Marsh Chapel religious event discussed in the previous chapter. Eventually Leary was also introduced to LSD, and this became his experimental drug of choice. However, the authorities at Harvard had soon had enough of Leary’s antics, self-promotion, and his entire modus operandi. In 1963 both Leary and Alpert were dismissed from their faculty positions.

However, Leary was not deterred in the slightest. Initially he and Alpert started their own organization, the International Federation for Internal Freedom (IFIF) for the further study of the religious and psychological potential of hallucinogenic drug use. The IFIF was headquartered in a Mexican resort town. However, the reports of wild orgies and other unseemly behavior caused the Mexican authorities to evict the group, and Leary was back in the United States once again. By this time experimenting with LSD had developed a cachet that was attracting the attention of many high rollers throughout the country. Eventually Leary encountered the fabulously wealthy William Mellon Hitchcock (aka “Mr. Billy”), the grandson of the founder of Gulf Oil. Mr. Billy took to LSD and to Timothy Leary and offered him and his acolytes the use of his 64-room country estate. Here at the Millbrook estate Leary established the Castalia Foundation, named after the priestly sect in Hesse’s novel The Glass Bead Game, which was dedicated to the scholarly study of LSD and its spiritual applications. Apparently Leary saw himself as a latter-day Joseph Knecht and proceeded to hold court with anybody who cared to visit, partake of the LSD experience, and discuss the matter with him. As a guide to the direction and understanding of LSD-induced psychedelic experience, Leary used the Tibetan Book of the Dead which deals explicitly with different states of consciousness. Leary reinterpreted this so that it ended up as a sort of mixture of Buddhist wisdom and Scientology. Clearly at this point Leary had become the high priest of an LSD-fueled religion complete with its own bible. Millbrook was visited by a wide variety of high-profile individuals from the arts and politics, and its place in the general public’s consciousness rapidly increased.

However, it was not only Leary who catalyzed the popularity of LSD. In 1960 Ken Kesey, who had graduated from Stanford’s creative writing workshop, answered an advertisement for human guinea pigs to take part in one of the CIA-sponsored research studies on psychedelic drugs at a local hospital and ended up working there in the psychiatric ward. Here the ample availability of both psychedelic drugs and mental patients inspired him to write his first novel, “One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest”—a considerable critical and popular success. The money that he earned from the book allowed Kesey, like Leary on the East Coast, a certain degree of freedom. While continuing to write, a group of like-minded and frequently stoned associates began to form a loose association with him.

Kesey’s take on the use of the LSD experience, however, was very different from Leary’s. He saw himself as a sort of agent provocateur whose role was to shake up the entire bourgeois establishment. In 1964, together with his band of “Merry Pranksters,” he purchased a bus, painted it in bright Day-Glo colors and, with the Pranksters attired in outrageous garb, traveled across the country handing out LSD—or “acid” as it was becoming known—to anybody who wanted to try it. In this way Kesey began to democratize the use of LSD, and things began to take on the characteristics of the drug counterculture movement of the 1960s. While in New York, Kesey and the Pranksters visited Leary at Millbrook in what clearly could have been an interesting meeting. However, the presence of two egos as large as theirs was too much even for the 64 rooms of Millbrook. Indeed, Leary did not deign to meet personally with Kesey, and the latter was not impressed with the priestly atmosphere pervading the upper class Millbrook estate where, in spite of everything else, attempts were made to study the effects of LSD on behavior in a conventional sense. So, the result was a culture clash—East coast versus West Coast, upper class versus working class, exclusivity versus egalitarianism. Kesey wanted to popularize the entire “acid trip” in a way that was fundamentally different from what Leary was doing. Following his return to California, Kesey began to mount a series of “Acid Tests,” basically the precursors to hippie happenings where acid-laced “Electric Kool-Aid” was readily available accompanied by the latest music played by Kesey’s favorite rock group, The Warlocks, soon to reemerge as The Grateful Dead.

In 1965, when large amounts of easily available acid hit the streets of US cities, American society was a powder keg ready to explode. The combination of the Vietnam war, the assassination of Malcolm X, the race riots in Watts and other cities, and the volatile mood on US college campuses, all contributed to the general ferment. Society was becoming increasingly radicalized and many young people felt completely disillusioned with their government and society in general. They sought to distance themselves from the status quo and to distinguish themselves as revolutionaries in as many ways as possible.

did the fbi plan to assassinate occupy wallstreet leaders?

chron | A federal judge has ordered the FBI to explain why it withheld some information requested by a graduate student for his research on a plot to assassinate Occupy Houston protest leaders.

Ryan Noah Shapiro, a doctoral student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass., filed a lawsuit April 29, 2013, against the U.S. Department of Justice in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.

U.S. District Judge Rosemary M. Collyer issued her order, with an accompanying memo, on March 12.

The FBI, as part of the Department of Justice, controls the records Shapiro wanted for his study of "conflicts at the nexus of American national security, law enforcement and political dissent," the plaintiff's complaint stated.

Houston was among hundreds of U.S. cities where protesters occupied outdoor spaces as part of the Occupy Movement that started in New York's Zucotti Park on Sept. 17, 2011.

"The movement has sought to expose how the wealthiest 1 percent of society promulgates an unfair global economy that harms people and destroys communities worldwide," the complaint stated.

Shapiro said in his complaint that the existence of an assassination plot against Occupy Houston's leaders became known through the FBI's earlier release of information in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.

"According to one of the released records, ... [REDACTED] planned to gather intelligence against the leaders of the protest groups and obtain photographs, then formulate a plan to kill the leadership via suppressed sniper rifles...," Shapiro stated in his complaint.

Shapiro requested additional information from the FBI in January 2013.

"There is presently a vigorous and extraordinarily important debate in the United States about the authority of the government to conduct extrajudicial killings on American soil," the complaint stated.

"The records sought by plaintiff would likely be an invaluable contribution to the public discourse on this issue," Shapiro's complaint said. "It would also be a significant controversy if it was revealed that the FBI deliberately failed to act to prevent a plot to assassinate American protest leaders."

In response to Shapiro's request, the FBI identified 17 pages of records and turned over five partial pages while entirely withholding 12 pages, according to court records.

Shapiro filed the suit because, his complaint stated, the FBI's search was inadequate and failed to produce relevant records, and the agency improperly invoked certain exemptions as reasons not to disclose information.

government captive to the vampire squid

forbiddenknowledgetv |  In this interview on C-SPAN, Glenn Greenwald cites a Sammy Johnson Op-Ed in the Washington Post that basically says that the New York investment bank, Goldman Sachs, "...seems to have a virtual lock on the Treasury Department. Positions: The Clinton Administration's Secretary of the Treasury was a former Goldman CEO, Robert Rubin and of course, of course, under President Bush, the CEO who designed the bail-out packages was the former Goldman-Sachs Ceo, Hank Paulson. The current Secretary, Tim Geithner is a protege of Robert Rubin - his Chief-of-Staff is a Lobbyist with Goldman-Sachs - and that's just one firm.

"But you look across the government, you see the financial industry, through its enormous financial resources, pouring money into the campaign coffers of the members of Congress, controlling members of the Executive Branch - and so each and every policy that the Executive Branch, under both President Bush and Obama have promulgated and advocated, as a response to the [World Financial] Crisis - has as the primary beneficiaries, the financial elites who have funded them and who control them and to whom they are inextricably linked - and it's a form of extreme corruption, in general - and I think that in a case where there's a real crisis, it's a particular problem.

"Another thing that I would underscore is that, if you go look back at how the [World Financial] Crisis began, in the 1990s, the financial industry was advocating, vigorously that many of the limitations on what they were able to do, many of which had been in place since the Great Depression - to prevent another Great Depression - were abolished one-by-one - and why? On a bi-partisan basis, because they fund both political parties and they were able to write the laws and those regulations were abolished, at their behest; that's what CAUSED the Financial Crisis - and that same corrupt system is still fueling what is intended as the solution."

russia a patron of true believers

rsn |  ussian President Vladimir Putin is on a geopolitical roll these days, despite US and EU sanctions against some of his closest associates. On Monday he recognized Crimea in the wake of its referendum on secession from the Ukraine, despite Western warnings not to do so, and despite severe questions about the accuracy of the statistics put out by Crimea’s rump authorities concerning the alleged turnout and supposed overwhelming vote in favor of seceding.

Less noticed was the advance on Sunday of Hizbullah fighters and Syrian troops into Yabroud, the last territory that had been held by rebel forces on the Lebanon border. The rebels in that part of Syria have now been cut off from supply lines in Lebanon, a major victory for the regime. From Yabroud, fighters had been able to infiltrate Eastern Ghouta near Damascus, but that tactic has now been forestalled. Increasingly also in control of Homs, the Syrian army appears to be gradually extending its control north toward Hama and then Aleppo. There is no early prospect of victory by the regime, which is stretched thin, but it has inflicted a series of heavy blows on rebel forces in the past 8 months. Some of the comeback of the Bashar al-Assad regime, which seemed doomed only a year ago, derives from money and weapons supplied by Putin.

In the current Sunni-Shiite struggles in the east of the Arab world, Putin has in essence made Russia a patron of the Shiites just as it is a patron of the Eastern Orthodox Christians.

russia not having thugs or the blood funnel at its backside...,

irishtimes | Although wanting friendly relations with Ukraine, Russia refused to accept the new authorities in Kiev who, with the help of radical ultranationalists, had seized power in an unconstitutional coup. Russia, Putin suggested, had a humanitarian responsibility to go to the rescue of Crimea’s large ethnic Russian population, who were in danger of attack from marauding “neo-Nazis, anti-Semites and Russo- phobes”.

Although Putin won permission from Russian lawmakers to deploy troops in Ukraine in the wake of the revolution, he had not yet exercised that right. Russia had deployed extra troops to protect military installations in Crimea but, contrary to western allegations, there had been no invasion of the peninsular.

Putin said the chaos in Ukraine reflected a broader breakdown in global security since the collapse of the Soviet Union, which made way for a unipolar world.

‘Rule of the gun’
Western powers, led by the US, had abused power, ignoring international law in favour of the “rule of the gun”.

As examples, Putin listed the US bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the bombing of Libya by US and European forces in 2011 even in the UN-prescribed no-fly zone, all of which Russia had opposed.

More relevant to the Crimea case was the broad acceptance by the West of Kosovo’s controversial decision to secede from Russia’s ally Serbia in 2009 and become an independent state. If a special case had been made for Kosovo, it was two-faced to protest that Crimea’s secession from Ukraine was illegal.

Putin implied that the US and the EU had, not for the first time, fanned the flames of revolution in Ukraine. Sponsorship of regime change in Ukraine was part of a concerted campaign by the West against Russia and against the Kremlin’s plans for Eurasian integration. “With Ukraine, our western partners have crossed the line, playing the bear and acting irresponsibly and unprofessionally,” he said.

If Russia’s national interests were at stake in Ukraine, so too was its position as a resurgent power determined to be involved in shaping the world order.

Constantly sidelined
Putin complained that the West had constantly sidelined Russia in global decision-making since the fall of the Soviet Union. Promises had been broken and deceitful steps taken behind Russia’s back.

A particular grudge was Nato’s failure to honour a pledge made to Mikhail Gorbachev in 1989 not to expand beyond Germany. Russia’s western borders were now flanked by members of the US-backed military alliance from the Baltics to Poland, Hungary and Bulgaria.

The prospect of Nato troops settling down in Crimea, the home of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, was unimaginable, Putin said. “Let them come and visit us there instead,” he said.

parliamentary sissies an organ of the vampire squid...,

pbs |  The U.S. and others want the IMF to be able to do more lending. Under the reforms, the IMF lending capacity would be bigger and borrowing amount — based on the relative size of countries — will go up along with the increase in quotas.

The way that the increase in the United States would take place is by shifting some of our commitment that’s in the form of credit provided to the IMF to become quota (i.e., our shareholder stake).

So there are some doubts; people are asking, is there risk involved to the U.S.? It’s not really a partisan issue though. Republicans want there to be an IMF and want it to be able to operate. Most people want there to be IMF reforms and a reduction of influence of European countries, which is basically a hold-over of the 1940s and 1950s. It’s harder to strengthen the legitimacy of the IMF without allowing emerging economies more influence.

Johnson recommends this primer from the Peterson Institute on why IMF reforms are important for the United States and how the U.S. is standing in their way.

But the House Foreign Affairs Committee has introduced legislation for an aid package without IMF reforms.

Yes, the IMF reforms are being held up by House Republicans, but the question is whether this is a matter of principle or a tactical move since they’re trying to tie it to other things they want. There’s not a big disagreement on the substance of those reforms.

The key difference between the U.S. and any other country [approving the reforms] is that the U.S. has to get the reforms passed through Congress for them to become law. We are the hold up now. The quota increase only goes through when 85 percent [of IMF shareholders] agree, and the United States is the only country that has veto power because we have such a big stake.

banksters strike back

WaPo | President Obama expanded sanctions against top aides and reputed financial associates of Russian President Vladi­mir Putin on Thursday as punishment for the annexation of Crimea, and laid the groundwork for far broader measures against “key sectors of the Russian economy” if Putin further escalates his actions in Ukraine.

The broad measures potentially include Russia’s financial services, energy, mining, engineering and defense sectors, according to language in what was Obama’s third executive order in two weeks. If implemented, he acknowledged, they would not only significantly affect the Russian economy, “they could also be disruptive to the global economy.”

But “Russia must know that further escalation will only isolate it further from the international community,” Obama said in a brief statement on the White House South Lawn.

For now, the measures target Putin’s inner circle and stop well short of the kind of sanctions that have crippled Iran’s economy. Those would be triggered only by a wider military incursion, and Russian troops remain massed on Ukraine’s eastern and southern borders. And although Putin has said Russia has no further territorial designs on Ukraine, he has proved indifferent to Western threats.

putting putin in play?

rsn | Last September, as the prospects for a U.S. military strike against Syria were fading thanks to Putin, NED president Carl Gershman, who is something of a neocon paymaster controlling more than $100 million in congressionally approved funding each year, took to the pages of the neocon-flagship Washington Post and wrote that Ukraine was now “the biggest prize.”

But Gershman added that Ukraine was really only an interim step to an even bigger prize, the removal of the strong-willed and independent-minded Putin, who, Gershman added, “may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad [i.e. Ukraine] but within Russia itself.” In other words, the new hope was for “regime change” in Kiev and Moscow.

Putin had made himself a major annoyance in Neocon World, particularly with his diplomacy on Syria that defused a crisis over a Sarin attack outside Damascus on Aug. 21, 2013. Despite the attack’s mysterious origins – and the absence of any clear evidence proving the Syrian government’s guilt – the U.S. State Department and the U.S. news media rushed to the judgment that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad did it.

Politicians and pundits baited Obama with claims that Assad had brazenly crossed Obama’s “red line” by using chemical weapons and that U.S. “credibility” now demanded military retaliation. A longtime Israeli/neocon goal, “regime change” in Syria, seemed within reach.

But Putin brokered a deal in which Assad agreed to surrender Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal (even as he continued to deny any role in the Sarin attack). The arrangement was a huge letdown for the neocons and Israeli officials who had been drooling over the prospect that a U.S. bombing campaign would bring Assad to his knees and deliver a strategic blow against Iran, Israel’s current chief enemy.

Putin then further offended the neocons and the Israeli government by helping to facilitate an interim nuclear deal with Iran, making another neocon/Israeli priority, a U.S. war against Iran, less likely.

So, the troublesome Putin had to be put in play. And, NED’s Gershman was quick to note a key Russian vulnerability, neighboring Ukraine, where a democratically elected but corrupt president, Viktor Yanukovych, was struggling with a terrible economy and weighing whether to accept a European aid offer, which came with many austerity strings attached, or work out a more generous deal with Russia.

post hays code bettie...,

archive | The Hays code left the Fleischers scrambling for new directions in which to take a very much toned-down Betty, and new characters for her (since Bimbo was out), with whom she could interact. Pudgy was cute but, being that he was not anthropomorphic, his scope was limited. What a great character they came up with in Grampy, who was a reflection of their own creative and innovative energy, and no doubt inspired both by Rube Goldberg's Professor Lucifer Gorgonzola Butts character (the supposed inventor of Rube Goldberg machines) and Max Fleischer's own penchant for gadgeteering (he invented the rotoscope, rotograph, and several other processes). In their usual spirit of parody and satire, they combined three cliches-- a thinking cap, the mortarboard hat of a professor, and the idea light bulb (which, according to an article on tvtropes.org, originated in the 'Felix the Cat' cartoons of the 1920's)-- into something for Grampy to wear while brainstorming problems for Betty. Grampy's eminently singable theme song, "We're On Our Way to Grampy's," the melody which became Grampy's signature theme in subsequent cartoons, sets the tone perfectly for this cheerful and energetic character.

The Fleischers knew that they had a strong character in Grampy, and used him in a Color Classics episode ('Christmas Comes But Once a Year') in a possible spin-off attempt. Despite his frenetic energy in that cartoon, his interaction with Betty is at least half of his appeal as a character.

[Update] I think I've finally got the lyrics...

I'm on my way to Grampy's
Oh! He's such good company
It's the only place to be
(Tweet!)
Over at Grampy's house

So I'm on my way to Grampy's
For he always treats me nice
Always something on the ice
(Where?!)
Over at Grampy's house

Daw d'dee d'daw d'dee
It never is too late
Daw d'dee d'daw d'dee
He will always wait!

And when everybody's rusty
He is always full of pep
Everybody's going to be
(Where?!)
Over at Grampy's house

So we're on our way to Grampy's
Oh! He's such good company...

racy bettie

wikipedia |  Betty Boop is an animated cartoon character created by Max Fleischer, with help from animators including Grim Natwick.^{[1][2][3][4][5][6]} She originally appeared in the Talkartoon and Betty Boop film series, which were produced by Fleischer Studios and released by Paramount Pictures. She has also been featured in comic strips and mass merchandising. Despite having been toned down in the mid-1930s as a result of the Hays Code to appear more demure, she became one of the best-known and popular cartoon characters in the world.

globalization has turned on its western creators

telegraph |  A number of years ago, a story went around that sprouts were being transported from across Britain to an East Anglian airport, from where they were sent to Poland for washing and packaging before being air-freighted back again for sale in supermarkets located but a few miles from where they were grown. 

This is an extreme example of the sometimes insane supply-chain dynamics of modern-day globalisation, but it speaks loudly to widespread disillusionment with the once-unquestioned blessings of free trade. From the Occupy Wall Street and Tea Party movements of the US to the renewed rise of populist politics in Europe, the backlash is everywhere to be seen.

In real terms, Americans are on average no better off than they were 30 years ago; in Britain, the Institute for Fiscal Studies says that our real disposable incomes are in the midst of a 14-year freeze. Vast tracts of gainful employment in textiles, potteries, shoe-making, machine tools and many other industries have disappeared, to be replaced by… well, not very much at all outside the now languishing financial services industry and the housing market.

The West’s competitive advantage, even in hi-tech industries such as pharmaceuticals and aerospace, is being fast whittled away too. The welfare and health entitlements to which we have become accustomed look ever more unaffordable, while the final-salary pensions that workers could once expect as reward for a lifetime of service are now confined to the public sector – and those too will surely be gone within 10 years. It is small wonder that the benefits of free trade are now so widely questioned.

Critics of globalisation, such as Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel laureate in economics, used to focus on the supposed harm that Western-inspired trade liberalisation was inflicting on the developing world. Few would these days think this the correct way of looking at the problem.

On the contrary, by opening up the global economy to Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe, the West seems to have unleashed a doomsday machine which threatens ever-greater destruction of its own living standards. After a brief number of years in which globalisation made everything seemingly cheaper, the terms of trade have moved badly against the West. 

Sure enough, the world as a whole is getting a whole lot richer. In the past decade alone, the global economy has doubled in size. But most of the benefits of this explosion in activity have gone to the developing world and, in the West, the already rich, highly educated and talented. The wealth divide has widened to record levels almost everywhere. 

Western business leaders embraced globalisation not just because it opens up new markets, introduces new ideas and weeds out unproductive, protected sectors, but because it allows for lower production costs and so bigger profits. It doesn’t seem to have occurred to them that if you don’t provide Western consumers with jobs, they’ll be priced out of the market and the mother economy will wither and die. 

The principles of free trade are the same for nations as they are for individuals. Rather than trying to produce everything we need to live, most of us choose to work in quite specialist forms of employment, the product of which we sell to others. We then use the proceeds to buy in other goods and services. Nations ought similarly to derive a collective economic benefit by specialising in the things they do best and then trading with others for the rest. 

But the system only works if everyone plays by a common set of rules and standards.

how to be trapped

feasta |  For all sorts of reasons the possibility of a controlled orchestrated de-growth to some viable steady-state position is probably deluded in the extreme. I’ll just point to one thing, such a view tends to embody the confusion that because the globalised economy is human-made it is therefore designed, understandable and controllable – humans can do this in niches, but the emergent structure of multiple niches interacting on many scales over time is not. This mirrors the sort of argument made famous by William Paley in his Natural Theology who said that the existence of living organisms proved the existence of a divine creator/ designer by analogy with how the finding of a watch would lead one to believe in the existence of an intelligent watchmaker. Half a century later Darwin and then his followers showed that natural selection could do emergent design without a controller- the ‘blind’ watchmaker in Richard Dawkins words. But as believers in Man’s progress we seem to have taken on the role that Paley once ascribed to god- that is, as the creators of the complex globalised economy it is therefore designable and controllable and potentially perfectible if only the right people and ideas were in the cockpit. We find all sorts of confusion arising from this when attempts are made to take linguistic dominion over the economy by confusing complex interdependent emergence with intentional design (as in, the economy is capitalist/ neoliberal/ socialist, or, we need to change ‘the monetary architecture’). So even without getting into details about irreversibility in complex systems or the myriad practical problems with a controllable de-growth, the power of the belief in its possibility seems, to me at least, to represent Titanic hubris.

That said, a disorderly de-growth/collapse would bring us to a new era where we would end up with a much reduced capacity to access and use resources and dump waste. But we’d still have to respond to problems and that would generally require whatever energy and resources were at hand. For example, anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions would likely nose-dive, a good thing of course, although the effects of climate changes would continue to get worse because of lags in the climate system while our adaptive capacity compared to today would have been shattered. Thus the real cost of climate change would escalate beyond our ability to pay quite suddenly and much faster than conventional climate-economic models would suggest. The danger here is that in a state of poverty and forced localization our attempts to respond to such emergent stress and crises mean we start undermining our local environments and their on-going capacity to support us. So any form of steady-state economy in the foreseeable future is inherently problematic.

But in time some of us might be able to maintain a simple steady-state economy by acculturating to that new reality, at least for a while. Maybe a world where parsimonious poets and threadbare social nurturers are loved and admired, while an affliction for stuff would leave one pitied and dateless! I’m pretty sure there will people living good, meaningful and ecologically responsible lives long into the future.

the flight 370 in kiev open thread...,

Cause inquiring minds want to know what Bro. Umbra thinks about the impossible phenomenon of a Boeing 777 being lost? Somebody DEFINITELY knows where that plane is sitting and has known exactly where it's been sitting since this narrative jumped off. Any liminal perspectives causing you to itch, now's the time to scratch.

diversity and the free market?

thefederalist | The bromide that brings out the most sanctimonious chest pounding in American life is the demand for greater diversity in the most diverse country in the world. Liberals are especially adept celebrating their own virtue, while obscenely flashing, and thereby shaming, the barbarians they deem less sophisticated, cultured, or progressive. Using the garret of political correctness to silence critics, and employing the bludgeon of institutional authority to beat subordinates into submission, liberals have created a culture that takes a good concept and mutates it into a monster of social repression, censorship, and political shrinkage.

The machinery of liberalism mechanizes the media and academia to undermine diversity, all in the name of upholding it. Tyrannical limitations on acceptable speech, otherwise known as political correctness, make people less likely to interact with those of different races, not more, for the same reasons a pedestrian out for a stroll is likely to avoid a minefield. The liberal conception of diversity is also so narrow that it becomes silly and, in the process, loses all meaning. Universities that hire diversity czars and do everything to ensure a more diverse student population, short of lowering tuition, rarely advocate intellectual diversity, because that might cause students to question the presuppositions of liberal dogma. No one will ever catch the campus bureaucrat bolstering behavioral diversity, because that would require a critical examination of the gender codes (masculinity is bad), green codes (eating meat is bad), speech codes (jokes are bad), activism codes (anything conservative is bad), consumer codes (too much shopping is bad) and other codes that dictate exactly how an educated person is supposed to behave.

Intellectual diversity opens minds and behavioral diversity presents alternative options for lifestyle comfort and happiness. Liberals neglect, and often attack, those forms of diversity in an effort to reduce the concept of diversity to ethnic and racial bean counting. Diversity, according to the liberal vision, becomes as exciting as an average day of a census worker, and relegates potentially positive human interaction into the force feeding of medicine. The enforcement of quotas, both written and unwritten, expose the authoritarian streak in contemporary liberalism, and nothing demonstrates the we-know-what-is-good-for-you soft tyranny of liberals more than their suspicion, and often hatred, of the one force that creates and maintains maximum diversity in American life: the free market.


As Black History Month closes, it is timely to acknowledge that jazz music is one of the world’s greatest art forms. Created primarily and largely by black Americans in New York City, New Orleans, Chicago, and Kansas City, it was an attempt, in the poetic words of literary master Ralph Ellison, to “live with music” rather than “dying with noise.”

Close minded moralists speaking from the podiums of the State and the pulpits of the church condemned jazz for its sexuality and daring engagement with the romance of the urban night and city loner. If authoritarians won their battle against jazz music, the entire world would have lost the beauty and humanizing influence of Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Billie Holiday, and John Coltrane. Jazz was able to establish dominance over the American airwaves, and establish itself as an art form, only because the free market provided an opportunity for jazz clubs, jazz radio stations, and jazz record companies to make large amounts of money by serving the consumer demand for jazz music. One of the greatest achievements of black Americans – the greatest achievements of American civilization – exists not because a college dean in a sweater vest listening to NPR suggested it, or because a political hack had his intern help him roll up his sleeves and then demanded it, it exists because of the laws of supply and demand, the excellence of the free market, and the incentive of profit.

the rise of anti-capitalism?

NYTimes |  THE unresolved question is, how will this economy of the future function when millions of people can make and share goods and services nearly free? The answer lies in the civil society, which consists of nonprofit organizations that attend to the things in life we make and share as a community. In dollar terms, the world of nonprofits is a powerful force. Nonprofit revenues grew at a robust rate of 41 percent — after adjusting for inflation — from 2000 to 2010, more than doubling the growth of gross domestic product, which increased by 16.4 percent during the same period. In 2012, the nonprofit sector in the United States accounted for 5.5 percent of G.D.P. 

What makes the social commons more relevant today is that we are constructing an Internet of Things infrastructure that optimizes collaboration, universal access and inclusion, all of which are critical to the creation of social capital and the ushering in of a sharing economy. The Internet of Things is a game-changing platform that enables an emerging collaborative commons to flourish alongside the capitalist market.

This collaborative rather than capitalistic approach is about shared access rather than private ownership. For example, 1.7 million people globally are members of car-sharing services. A recent survey found that the number of vehicles owned by car-sharing participants decreased by half after joining the service, with members preferring access over ownership. Millions of people are using social media sites, redistribution networks, rentals and cooperatives to share not only cars but also homes, clothes, tools, toys and other items at low or near zero marginal cost. The sharing economy had projected revenues of $3.5 billion in 2013.

Nowhere is the zero marginal cost phenomenon having more impact than the labor market, where workerless factories and offices, virtual retailing and automated logistics and transport networks are becoming more prevalent. Not surprisingly, the new employment opportunities lie in the collaborative commons in fields that tend to be nonprofit and strengthen social infrastructure — education, health care, aiding the poor, environmental restoration, child care and care for the elderly, the promotion of the arts and recreation. In the United States, the number of nonprofit organizations grew by approximately 25 percent between 2001 and 2011, from 1.3 million to 1.6 million, compared with profit-making enterprises, which grew by a mere one-half of 1 percent. In the United States, Canada and Britain, employment in the nonprofit sector currently exceeds 10 percent of the work force. 

Despite this impressive growth, many economists argue that the nonprofit sector is not a self-sufficient economic force but rather a parasite, dependent on government entitlements and private philanthropy. Quite the contrary. A recent study revealed that approximately 50 percent of the aggregate revenue of the nonprofit sectors of 34 countries comes from fees, while government support accounts for 36 percent of the revenues and private philanthropy for 14 percent.

As for the capitalist system, it is likely to remain with us far into the future, albeit in a more streamlined role, primarily as an aggregator of network services and solutions, allowing it to thrive as a powerful niche player in the coming era. We are, however, entering a world partly beyond markets, where we are learning how to live together in an increasingly interdependent, collaborative, global commons.

do you believe the Hon.Bro.Preznit is Brer Rabbit sneaking in policies for the least of these?

salon | The big news after President Obama’s State of the Union address in January was that he didn’t really talk about the issues of inequality that everyone expected him to talk about. Instead, he shifted the “conversation,” as we call it, toward the subject of opportunity. He shied away from the extremely disturbing fact that when you work these days only your boss prospers, and brought us back to the infinitely less disturbing fact that sometimes poor people do get ahead despite it all. In a clever oratorical maneuver, Obama illustrated this comforting idea by referencing the success stories of both himself—“the son of a single mom”—and his arch-foe, Republican House Speaker John Boehner—“the son of a barkeep.” He spoke of building “new ladders of opportunity into the middle class,” a phrase that has become a trademark for his administration.

The problem, as Obama summed it up, is that Americans have ceased to believe they can rise from the ranks. “Opportunity is who we are,” he said. “And the defining project of our generation must be to restore that promise.”

The switcheroo was subtle, but if you’ve been paying attention you couldn’t miss it: These were almost precisely the words Obama had used the month before (“The defining challenge of our time”) to describe inequality itself.

Well, the Democratic apparat heard it, and as one body did they sway and swoon. This was a move of statesmanlike genius, they said. “Opportunity” and social mobility are what Americans have always liked to hear about, they declared; “inequality” sounds like a demand for entitlements—or something much worse. “What you want to do is focus on the aspirational side of this,” said Paul Begala in a typical remark, “lifting people up, not on just complaining about a lack of fairness or inequality.”

If you’re in the right mood, you might well agree with him. In the distant past, “opportunity” used to be something of a liberal buzzword, a way of selling welfare-state inventions of every description. The reason was simple: true equality of opportunity is not possible without achieving, well, greater equality, period. If we’re really serious about opportunity—if we’re going to ensure that every poor kid has a chance in life that is the equal of every rich kid—it’s going to require a gigantic investment in public schools, in housing, in food stamps, in infrastructure, in public projects of every description. It will necessarily mean taking on the broader problem of the One Percent along the way.

But that was what the word meant long ago. It’s different today. When people talk about opportunity nowadays, they’re often not trying to refine the debate over inequality, they’re trying to negate it. The social function of mobility-talk is usually to excuse inequality, not to change it; to persuade us that the system we have now is fair and even natural—or that it can be made so with a few more charter schools or student loans or something. Because everyone has a chance at making it into the One Percent, this version of “opportunity” tells us, there’s nothing wrong with letting the One Percent hog every dish at the banquet.  Fist tap Vic.

the rich strike back

politico | In two-dozen interviews, the denizens of Wall Street and wealthy precincts around the nation said they are still plenty worried about the shift in tone toward top earners and the popularity of class-based appeals. On the right, the rise of populists including Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz still makes wealthy donors eyeing 2016 uncomfortable. But wealthy Republicans — who were having a collective meltdown just two months ago — also say they see signs that the political zeitgeist may be shifting back their way and hope the trend continues.

“I hope it’s not working,” Ken Langone, the billionaire co-founder of Home Depot and major GOP donor, said of populist political appeals. “Because if you go back to 1933, with different words, this is what Hitler was saying in Germany. You don’t survive as a society if you encourage and thrive on envy or jealousy.”

Langone’s comments — sure to draw ire from those who find such comparisons to Nazi Germany insensitive — echo previous remarks from venture capitalist Tom Perkins, who likened the actions of some in the Occupy Wall Street movement to the Kristallnacht attacks on Jews in 1938. Perkins gave several interviews after the ensuing uproar, but he never really backed away from the comparison. And Langone showed no hesitancy in invoking the Nazis when describing current populist rhetoric.

The Democratic power elite now believe that appeals to raise the minimum wage and extend unemployment insurance are not enough to overcome Obama’s deep unpopularity and frustration with the president’s signature health care law. They fear that unless Democrats shift footing to a more hopeful, growth-based message, the party could lose the Senate and drop double-digit seats in the House.

“Reducing inequality is good, but it’s 50 times better to do it by lifting those up who are low than by tearing those down who are high,” said Larry Summers, the former treasury secretary whose bid to become Fed chair got derailed by the more liberal wing of the Democratic Party. “The politics of envy are the wrong politics in America. The better politics are the politics of inclusion where everyone shares in economic growth.”

Welcome to Reality PhD Bon Qui Qui...,

slate |  As my Slate colleague Katy Waldman has written, it appears that in the buyer’s market of academia, “lean in” is a dangerous fallacy. For men and women both, it’s not “lean in” so much as “bend over.” According to the widely read blog the Philosophy Smoker, a job candidate identified as “W” recently received an offer for a tenure-track position at Nazareth College, a small liberal-arts school near Rochester, N.Y. Like many recipients of job offers, W viewed the original bid as the opening move in a series of negotiations, and thus submitted the following counteroffer, after informing the department—with whom she says she had been in friendly contact—that she was about to switch into “negotiation mode”:

As you know, I am very enthusiastic about the possibility of coming to Nazareth. Granting some of the following provisions would make my decision easier. 

1) An increase of my starting salary to $65,000, which is more in line with what assistant professors in philosophy have been getting in the last few years.
2) An official semester of maternity leave.
3) A pre-tenure sabbatical at some point during the bottom half of my tenure clock.
4) No more than three new class preps per year for the first three years.
5) A start date of academic year 2015 so I can complete my postdoc. 

I know that some of these might be easier to grant than others. Let me know what you think.

However, instead of coming back with a severely tempered counter-counter (“$57k, maternity, and LOL”), or even a “Take it or leave it, bub,” Nazareth allegedly rescinded the entire offer:

Thank you for your email. The search committee discussed your provisions. They were also reviewed by the Dean and the VPAA. It was determined that on the whole these provisions indicate an interest in teaching at a research university and not at a college, like ours, that is both teaching and student centered. Thus, the institution has decided to withdraw its offer of employment to you. 

Thank you very much for your interest in Nazareth College. We wish you the best in finding a suitable position.

The candidate was shocked. “This is how I thought negotiating worked,” she explained to the Philosophy Smoker in a follow-up missive, “how I learned to do it, and, for that matter, how I think it should work: You ask about a number of perks and maybe get some of them. I was expecting to get very few of the perks I asked about, if anything … I just thought there was no harm in asking.” The Philosophy Smoker found it “flabbergasting.” (A representative for Nazareth College told us they were unable to comment on a personnel matter; an attempt to reach out to W for comment has so far been unsuccessful.)