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How to win friends at AFRICOM - FOIA style
by Zenaan Harkness 21 Apr '16

21 Apr '16

I enjoyed this article: http://www.blacklistednews.com/How_a_Simple_Request_Got_Me_Blacklisted_by_t… TRIGGER WARNING: contains terms FOIA, US DoD, and negative implications about American DoD transparency.

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Why Poor Whites Chant Trump, Trump, Trump
by Zenaan Harkness 18 Apr '16

18 Apr '16

"Instead of wondering which billionaire will finally reach out a hand to raise us up, we should stop waiting and start acting." Chart attached, and youtube video (see below) might be worth watching: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tu32CCA_Ig ---- http://www.stirjournal.com/2016/04/01/i-know-why-poor-whites-chant-trump-tr… I Know Why Poor Whites Chant Trump, Trump, Trump Apr 1, 2016By Jonna Ivin BW_man >From the era of slavery to the rise of Donald Trump, wealthy elites have relied on the loyalty of poor whites. All Americans deserve better. I’m just a poor white trash motherfucker. No one cares about me. I met the man who said those words while working as a bartender in the Ozark Mountains of northwest Arkansas. It was a one-street town in Benton County. It had a beauty parlor, a gas station, and a bar where locals came on Friday nights to shoot the shit over cheap drinks and country music. I arrived in Arkansas by way of another little town in Louisiana, where all but a few local businesses had boarded up when Walmart moved in. In Arkansas, I was struggling to survive. I served drinks in the middle of the afternoon to people described as America’s “white underclass ( http://www.counterpunch.org/2009/07/17/america-s-white-underclass/ )” — in other words, people just like me. Across the highway from the bar was the trailer park where I lived. I bought my trailer for $1000, and it looked just like you would imagine a trailer that cost $1000 would look. There was a big hole in the ceiling, and parts of the floor were starting to crumble under my feet. It leaned to one side, and the faint odor of death hung around the bathroom. No doubt a squirrel or a rat had died in the walls. I told myself that once the flesh was gone, dissolved into the nothingness, the smell would go away, but it never did. Maybe that’s what vermin ghosts smell like. I loved that trailer. Sitting in a ratty brown La-Z-Boy, I would look around my tin can and image all the ways I could paint the walls in shades of possibility. I loved it for the simple reason that it was the first and only home I have ever owned. My trailer was parked in the middle of Walmart country, which is also home to J.B. Hunt Transportation, Glad Manufacturing, and Tyson Chicken. There is a whole lot of money in that pocket of Arkansas, but the grand wealth casts an oppressive shadow over a region entrenched in poverty. Executive mansions line the lakefronts and golf courses. On the other side of Country Club Road, trailer parks are tucked back in the woods. The haves and have-nots rarely share the same view, with one exception: politics. Benton County has been among the most historically conservative counties in Arkansas. The last Democratic president Benton County voted for was Harry S. Truman, in 1948. There is an unavoidable question about places like Benton County, a question many liberals have tried to answer for years now: Why do poor whites vote along the same party lines as their wealthy neighbors across the road? Isn’t that against their best interests? Ask a Republican, and they’ll probably say conservatives are united by shared positions on moral issues: family values, religious freedom, the right to life, the sanctity of marriage, and, of course, guns. Ask a Democrat the same question, and they might mention white privilege, but they’re more likely to describe conservatives as racist, sexist, homophobic gun nuts who believe Christianity should be the national religion. But what if those easy answers are two sides of the same political coin, a coin that keeps getting hurled back and forth between the two parties without ever shedding light on the real, more complicated truth? I’m just a poor white trash motherfucker. No one cares about me. What if he’s right? • • • People want to be heard. They want to believe their voices matter. A January 2016 survey by the Rand Corporation reported that Republican primary voters are 86.5 percent more likely to favor Donald Trump if they “somewhat agree” or “strongly agree” with the statement, “People like me don’t have any say about what the government does.” What is it about a flamboyant millionaire that appeals to poor white conservatives? Why do they believe a Trump presidency would amplify their voices? The answer may lie in America’s historical relationship between the wealthiest class and the army of poor whites who have loyally supported them. >From the time of slavery (yes, slavery) to the rise of Donald Trump, wealthy elites have relied on the allegiance of the white underclass to retain their affluence and political power. To understand this dynamic, to see through the eyes of poor and working class whites as they chant, “Trump, Trump, Trump,” let’s look back at a few unsavory slices of America’s capitalist pie. Until the first African slaves were brought to Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619, wealthy plantation owners relied on indentured servants for cheap labor. These white servants were mostly poor Europeans who traded their freedom for passage to the American colonies. They were given room and board, and, after four to seven years of grueling servitude, freedom. About 40 percent lived long enough to see the end of their contract. Colonial law provided “freedom dues,” which usually included 100 acres of land, a small sum of money, and a new suit of clothes. Yet some freed servants didn’t know what was due them, and they were swindled out of their land grants. With no resources and nowhere to go, many walked to regions where land could still be homesteaded, and settled in remote areas such as the Appalachian Mountains. As the British labor market improved in the 1680s, the idea of indentured servitude lost its appeal to many would-be immigrants. Increasing demand for indentured servants, many of whom were skilled laborers, soon bumped up against a dwindling supply, and the cost of white indentured servants rose sharply. Plantation owners kept skilled white servants, of course, often making them plantation managers and supervisors of slaves. This introduced the first racial divide between skilled and unskilled workers. Still, African slaves were cheaper, and the supply was plentiful. Seeing an opportunity to realize a higher return on investment, elite colonial landowners began to favor African slaves over white indentured servants, and shifted their business models accordingly. They trained slaves to take over the skilled jobs of white servants. An investment in African slaves also ensured a cost-effective, long-term workforce. Female slaves were often raped by their white owners or forced to breed with male slaves, and children born into slavery remained slaves for life. In contrast, white female servants who became pregnant were often punished with extended contracts, because a pregnancy meant months of lost work time. From a business perspective, a white baby was a liability, but African children were permanent assets. As the number of African slaves grew, landowners realized they had a problem on their hands. Slave owners saw white servants living, working, socializing, and even having babies with African slaves. Sometimes they tried to escape together. What’s more, freed white servants who received land as part of their freedom dues had begun to complain about its poor quality. This created a potentially explosive situation for landowners, as oppressed workers quickly outnumbered the upper classes. What was to prevent freed whites, indentured servants, and African slaves from joining forces against the tyranny of their masters? As Edmund S. Morgan says in his book American Slavery, American Freedom, “The answer to the problem, obvious if unspoken and only gradually recognized, was racism, to separate dangerous free whites from dangerous slave blacks by a screen of racial contempt.” Many slave owners in both the North and South were also political leaders. Soon, they began to pass laws that stipulated different treatment of white indentured servants, newly freed white men, and African slaves. No white indentured servant could be beaten while naked, but an African slave could. Any free white man could whip a Black slave, and most important, poor whites could “police” Black slaves. These new laws gave poor whites another elevation in status over their Black peers. It was a slow but effective process, and with the passing of a few generations, any bond that indentured servants shared with African slaves was permanently severed. As slavery expanded in the South and indentured servitude declined, the wealthy elite offered poor whites the earliest version of the American Dream: if they worked hard enough, they could achieve prosperity, success, and upward social mobility — if not for themselves, then perhaps for future generations. But few realized that dream. In “The Whiting of Euro-Americans: A Divide and Conquer Strategy,” the Rev. Dr. Thandeka notes: "Not surprisingly, however, poor whites never became the economic equals of the elite. Though both groups’ economic status rose, the gap between the wealthy and poor widened as a result of slave productivity. Thus, poor whites’ belief that they now shared status and dignity with their social betters was largely illusory." With whites and Blacks divided, the wealthy elite prospered enormously for the next two hundred years while poor whites remained locked in poverty. With the potential election of Abraham Lincoln, however, the upper class began to worry they would lose their most valuable commodity: slave labor. The numbers were not on their side — not the financial numbers, but the number of bodies it would take to wage war should Lincoln try to abolish slavery. And it was white male bodies they needed. (Poor women were of little value to the rich, since they couldn’t vote or fight in a war.) So how did wealthy plantation owners convince poor white males to fight for a “peculiar institution” that did not benefit them? Religious and political leaders began using a combination of fear, sex, and God to paint a chilling picture of freed angry Black men ravaging the South. Rev. Richard Furman stated, "… every Negro in South Carolina and every other Southern state will be his own master; nay, more than that, will be the equal of every one of you. If you are tame enough to submit, abolition preachers will be at hand to consummate the marriage of your daughters to black husbands." Another warning from Georgia Commissioner Henry Benning to the Virginia legislature predicted, "War will break out everywhere like hidden fire from the earth. We will be overpowered and our men will be compelled to wander like vagabonds all over the earth, and as for our women, the horrors of their state we cannot contemplate in imagination. We will be completely exterminated and the land will be left in the possession of the blacks, and then it will go back to a wilderness and become another Africa or Saint Domingo." Wealthy plantation owners had succeeded in separating the two races, and they now planted a fear of Blacks in the minds of poor and working white men. Enslaved Blacks were an asset to the wealthy, but freed Blacks were portrayed as a danger to all. By creating this common enemy among rich and poor alike, the wealthy elite sent a clear message: fight with us against abolitionists and you will remain safe. It worked. Poor and working class whites signed up by the hundreds of thousands to fight for what they believed was their way of life. Meanwhile, many of the wealthy planters who benefitted economically from slavery were granted exemptions from military service and avoided the horrors of battle. On both sides of the Mason-Dixon line, wealthy elites were allowed to pay other men to take their place on the bloody battlefields. As the war lingered on, poor whites in the North and South began to realize the rich had waged the war, but it was the poor who were dying in it. I’m just a poor white trash motherfucker. No one cares about me. With more than 650,000 deaths, the end of the Civil War eventually brought freedom for African-Americans. But after the war, ex-slaves were left to linger and die in a world created by those in the North who no longer cared and those in the South who now resented their existence. Poor whites didn’t fare much better. Without land, property, or hope for economic gains, many freed Blacks and returning white soldiers turned to sharecropping and found themselves once again working side by side, dependent on wealthy landowners. • • • During the Reconstruction Era, the press continued to spread “black men raping white women” propaganda. Again, this was intended to prevent poor whites and poor Blacks from joining forces. As Ida B. Wells wrote in her 1892 pamphlet, Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases: "The editorial in question was prompted by the many inhuman and fiendish lynchings of Afro-Americans which have recently taken place and was meant as a warning. Eight lynched in one week and five of them charged with rape! The thinking public will not easily believe freedom and education more brutalizing than slavery, and the world knows that the crime of rape was unknown during four years of civil war when the white women of the South were at the mercy of the race which is all at once charged with being a bestial one." This fear and mistrust continued for decades, not just in the South, but throughout all of America. From the factories of industrialized cities in the North to rural farmlands in the Midwest, from the Statue of Liberty in the East to the filmmakers in the West, racism had replaced classism as the most blatant form of oppression. But classism lingered, despite what wealthy elites would have Americans believe. Martin Luther King Jr. saw the enduring oppression of both poor whites and Blacks. In December 1967, King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) began organizing the Poor People’s Campaign of 1968. According to Rev. Dr. Ralph Abernathy, the campaign’s goal was to “dramatize the plight of America’s poor of all races and make very clear that they are sick and tired of waiting for a better life.” King alluded to that goal when he spoke about wealth inequality in “The Drum Major Instinct” on February 4, 1968. In his sermon, he talked about a conversation with his white jailers, saying: "And then we got down one day to the point — that was the second or third day — to talk about where they lived, and how much they were earning. And when those brothers told me what they were earning, I said, “Now, you know what? You ought to be marching with us. You’re just as poor as Negroes.” And I said, “You are put in the position of supporting your oppressor, because, through prejudice and blindness, you fail to see that the same forces that oppress Negroes in American society oppress poor white people. And all you are living on is the satisfaction of your skin being white, and the drum major instinct of thinking that you are somebody big because you are white. And you’re so poor you can’t send your children to school. You ought to be out here marching with every one of us every time we have a march.” "Now that’s a fact. That the poor white has been put into this position, where through blindness and prejudice, he is forced to support his oppressors. And the only thing he has going for him is the false feeling that he’s superior because his skin is white — and can’t hardly eat and make his ends meet week in and week out." The first Poor People’s Campaign gathering took place in Atlanta in March 1968, and included more than fifty multiracial organizations committed to the radical redistribution of political and economic power. When King was assassinated just a month later on April 4, the SCLC and King’s widow, Coretta Scott, decided to go ahead with the campaign. On Mother’s Day, May 12, thousands of women formed the ﬁrst wave of demonstrators, led by Coretta Scott King and joined by Ethel Kennedy, wife of presidential candidate Sen. Robert Kennedy. Protestors built a temporary encampment on the Mall in Washington, D.C., and 3,000 participants occupied “Resurrection City” for over a month. In June, 50,000 demonstrators joined them for the Solidarity Day Rally for Jobs, Peace, and Freedom. SCLC leaders and the National Welfare Rights Organization lobbied Congress to introduce an “economic bill of rights” for all Americans. image - Poor People's Campaign Demonstrators on the National Mall. Oliver F. Atkins Photograph Collection. Photo © SEPS Robert Kennedy, a key advocate for the campaign, was assassinated on June 6, 1968, a month into the campaign. His funeral procession passed through Resurrection City. Discouraged by the murders of King and Kennedy, scarce media coverage, and horrible living conditions in the camp, demonstrators’ optimism waned. Their land use permit expired on June 24, and Resurrection City closed. When the Poor People’s Campaign ended, so ended King’s vision of turning the nation’s attention to eradicating poverty among all people, and guaranteeing all people the opportunity for meaningful jobs with livable wages. The minimum wage for a tipped position in Arkansas — like the one I held as a bartender — is $2.63 an hour. The assumption is that tipped workers will earn their own minimum wages by making up the difference in tips. When this happens, a “tip credit” is given to employers, and they save money by paying less than the standard minimum wage. It was the way I spoke that landed me the job. I had no experience, but the owner of the bar told a friend she hired me because, “she speaks well and has all her own teeth.” I guess she assumed I would learn to make drinks. I didn’t. I wasn’t very good at my job, but one thing I was good at was listening. And what I often heard was a growing dissatisfaction among poor whites who were struggling to make ends meet in the failing economy. I understood their fear and frustration. I’ve spent a great deal of my life living in poverty. It’s scary being poor, worrying that one parking ticket would mean I couldn’t buy groceries, or deciding whether I should see a dentist about a toothache or pay my trailer park fee. It’s humiliating and terrifying, but sitting around and crying about it isn’t an option because we know that the only thing more pathetic than someone living in poverty is someone living in poverty and crying about it. How many times have we been told to get a job, or that if we just worked harder we could improve our situation? Work harder. Work harder. Work harder. American society has made it perfectly clear: if you are poor, it’s your own damn fault. I understood what it was to go hungry. Many times I didn’t eat on my days off, but waited until I could get back to work and sneak something from the kitchen. Remember that tip credit? I did, too, every time I stole a biscuit with gravy or a basket of tater tots. I understood their anger. Since crying isn’t an option, we swallow the sadness, and it sits and churns and gets spit back out as anger. I’ve felt this anger more times than I care to remember. I was angry that I couldn’t afford to paint my walls in shades of possibility. I was angry at my life choices that never felt like real choices. I was angry that wealth and prosperity were all around me while my hands remained clenched in empty pockets. What I couldn’t understand was why my customers directed their anger at other poor people. “I applied for a job at Tyson Chicken. They only hire Mexicans because they work cheap. We need to get those people out if we want jobs.” I heard this over and over from unemployed men at the bar. So why weren’t they angry with Tyson Foods, a company that could easily afford to pay higher wages? Why weren’t they angry with CEO-turned Chairman John Tyson, whose personal net worth is over a billion dollars? The answer I always got was that John’s father, Donald “Don” J. Tyson, the college drop-out who built his own father’s chicken farm into a multi-billion-dollar company, was a good ol’ boy. He wasn’t highfalutin like the city slickers of California and New York. Tyson, they felt, was one of them, a working class man who’d bootstrapped his way into the top one percent. He wore a khaki uniform with his name embroidered over the pocket, spoke with an “aw shucks” southern twang and was often quoted as saying, “I’m just a chicken farmer.” image - Don Tyson Donald J. Tyson Don Tyson wasn’t just a chicken farmer, much like the plantation owners weren’t just cotton growers. He was a multi-billionaire running a global corporation. Didn’t they know that in 1997, Tyson Foods pled guilty and paid $6 million in fines and costs for making gifts to Mike Espy, then President Bill Clinton’s secretary of agriculture? Didn’t they know that, from 1988 to 1990, Bill Clinton gave Tyson Foods $7.8 million in tax breaks while turning a blind eye to 300 miles of rivers polluted from chicken waste? Maybe they didn’t know those things, but what they did know was that poor Mexicans were taking their jobs. Over the years, Tyson Foods has settled numerous lawsuits, paying millions of dollars for infractions ranging from water pollution, race discrimination, and sex discrimination, as well as a $32 million wage settlement case. “The Mexican guys just hire other Mexicans. You can’t even work there if you don’t speak Spanish.” Were they right? I would say yes. In December 2001, a federal grand jury indicted Tyson Foods and six managers on 36 counts related to conspiring to import undocumented workers into the U.S., and employing them at fifteen chicken processing plants throughout the country. One defendant shot himself a few months after the indictment. Two made plea agreements and testified for the government. They said they were doing what the company demanded when they went along with the hiring of illegal workers. The remaining three executives claimed the others were “rogue” employees, and denied any knowledge of wrongdoing; they were acquitted. The grand jury alleged that the conspiracy began in 1994, when Tyson executive Gerald Lankford mentioned production at a Tennessee facility and said, “That plant needs more Mexicans.” There was no question that Tyson illegally smuggled undocumented workers into the U.S. The trial was about who initiated the operation. Regardless of who knew what, at least three managers at Tyson saw that brown workers were cheaper than white workers, and adjusted their business model accordingly. • • • It makes perfect sense that Don Tyson would say, “My theory about politics is that if they will just leave me alone, we’ll do just fine.” What didn’t make sense to me was that poor and working class locals would agree with him. Don Tyson, having lived his entire life in northwest Arkansas, was one of them. I wasn’t. I was born and raised in California. Sure, my people were blue-collar rednecks and my mother often reminded me that we were one generation removed from poor white trash, but I wasn’t Southern and I didn’t speak their language. My speech pattern wasn’t formed by higher education or a silver spoon in my mouth; it was simply a matter of accent. But it is an accent associated with liberal snobs. I was an outsider. Don Tyson didn’t make poor people in town feel inferior, but outsiders did. I’m not surprised, considering how socially acceptable it has become to mock poor whites, especially those born and raised in the South. Instead of fighting for better education for the white underclass, we call them ignorant rednecks. Instead of fighting for them to have better health care, we laugh at their missing teeth. Instead of fighting for them to have better housing, we joke about tornados hitting trailer parks. Luckily, life often has a way of turning stereotypes on their heads, if we pay attention. “It has become socially acceptable to mock poor whites born and raised in the South.” I was working my day shift at the bar, the same regulars sitting on the same barstools. Three men I’d never seen came in and sat at a table on the patio. They looked like most everyone else in the area, blue-collar scruffy types. I figured they were on a lunch break or they were in town to fish on the lake. I took their order, brought their food, and when they finished eating, dropped off the check. When they came up to the register to pay, one of the men made a comment about my hat. I didn’t catch what he said but his friends smirked. I said, “Excuse me?” My hat was a black and white newsboy cap. It covered my head on days I didn’t feel like doing my hair. But to the man, it meant something else, something I didn’t understand. He said, “I guess you like ‘em black.” I said, “My hat?” I was confused and I felt tension in the air. The bar had gone quiet. One of my regulars was sitting near the register, and he asked the man if he was from a particular town, one I hadn’t heard of. When the man nodded, my regular said, “Well, we don’t roll like that around here.” I handed the man his change. He glanced around at the regulars staring at him. It felt like a stand-off in an old western movie. Was a brawl about to break out over my hat? The man shook his head, looked at me in disgust, and walked out with his friends. The tension left with them. I asked, “What the hell was that all about?” “They’re Klan,” my customer said. I must have looked shocked. He said, “Don’t worry. We got your back.” A few months later, I left Arkansas and moved to Vancouver, Washington. Across the river in Portland, they call it “Vantucky.” I always dreaded driving into Portland with my big F150 truck sporting Arkansas plates. I imagined the liberal urbanites seeing me as one of “those people,” as if they expected me to barrel down the street chucking Walmart bags full of trash out the open window while blasting “Sweet Home Alabama” on my way to shoot up an abortion clinic. This was all in my head, but in a city known for its liberalism, I once again felt I didn’t belong. I signed up for training to be a court appointed special advocate (CASA) for kids in foster care, and attended a series of classes in Vancouver. One night, the instructors gathered the forty or so trainees for an exercise. We stood in a room and the leader of the group read a list of statements. Without speaking, we were to cross to the other side if the statement applied to us or stay in our place if it didn’t. As the exercise went on, I started to notice a pattern. “I’ve been affected by a family member’s drug or alcohol problem.” I crossed the room with a third of the volunteers. “I’ve been affected by poverty.” I crossed the room with a tiny fraction of volunteers. “I’ve graduated with a degree in higher education.” I stayed in my place as all but one woman crossed to the other side. The woman stood next to me and held my arm, and I immediately sized her up: older, well-dressed, probably married right out of high school. Privileged. It was an exercise in non-judgment — and it was humiliating. Not a single person looked at us. Their eyes focused on the floor, their hands, or something incredibly interesting on the ceiling. I suppose it was the polite, non-judgmental thing to do. If something or someone makes us uncomfortable, we simply avert our eyes and create an invisible barrier. You stay over there. I’ll stay over here. Those two experiences helped me see more clearly than ever how fool-headed it is to stereotype people based on how they look and where they live. The “redneck hillbillies” in that Arkansas bar could have laughed with the three Klan members, or said nothing at all. Instead, they stood up for me — an outsider — and made it known that the Klan wasn’t welcome there. On the other hand, I assumed a group of liberal, college-educated volunteers would ooze warmth and solidarity. But in class that night, I didn’t feel especially welcome. And I felt ashamed for judging that woman’s life based entirely on her appearance. I’m just a poor white trash motherfucker. No one cares about me. What would America look like today if King had succeeded in uniting poor people of all races? Would my bar customers in Arkansas more easily identify with Blacks, Hispanics, and other people of color than with billionaires like Don Tyson? Would they feel as if their voices mattered, as if they had some say in what their government does? Martin Luther King Jr. was concerned about poverty, and he also saw the growing inequality between the richest Americans and the poor and working classes. By the 1960s, this inequality was on the rise, but would soon become much more pronounced. In 1976 — just eight years after King’s call for unity among all poor people — Ronald Reagan launched his second unsuccessful bid for the Republican presidential nomination. In his campaign, he repeatedly trotted out the now infamous “Welfare Queen” story. Reagan got the GOP nod in 1980, and during his presidential campaign, he portrayed himself as a grandfatherly, all-American cowboy, a true Washington outsider. He promised to fix the economy with a combination of tax breaks, reduced government regulation, and cuts to federal programs. Reagan’s economic plan, dubbed “Reaganomics,” provided tax cuts that primarily benefitted the rich. The intent was to encourage the upper classes to spend and invest more, which would boost the economy and create new jobs. His disdain for welfare hadn’t changed. To offset tax cuts and massive increases in military spending, Reagan slashed federal social programs — for low-income Americans. Neither Reagan nor Congress was willing to touch Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid; they were too popular among the middle class. This left a tiny portion of the federal budget for social programs on the chopping block, including food stamps, vocational education, and subsidized housing, among others. From fiscal year 1980 to fiscal year 1987, federal funding for these programs plummeted by 35.6 percent. After a two-year recession, the economy rebounded and continued to grow. Yet while the Reagan administration congratulated themselves on the economic expansion, poor people were still struggling. But Reagan had given poor whites someone to blame for their suffering: the Welfare Queen. He never said she was Black. He didn’t have to. Lee Atwater was an adviser to both Reagan and President George H. W. Bush, and chairman of the Republican National Committee from 1989 until his death two years later. In 1981, while working in Reagan’s White House, Atwater gave an interview to Alexander Lamis, a political scientist at Case Western Reserve University. In an unguarded moment that Atwater believed was off the record, he said: "You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nigger” — that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.… “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nigger, nigger.” " In five short sentences, Atwater explained how Republican politicians could appeal to poor whites’ racism (conscious or unconscious) without using blatantly racist language. This shift was important because Reagan had cut social programs that began with the presidencies of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. “Republican politicians appealed to poor whites’ racism without using blatantly racist language.” In 1963, President John Kennedy had begun planning a “war on poverty” intended to help poor, southern whites — particularly in Appalachia and the rural South. Kennedy had visited Appalachia during the 1960 presidential campaign, and was shocked by what he saw — ”the hungry children, … the old people who cannot pay their doctors bills, the families forced to give up their farms.” Many of these families were descendants of white indentured servants who had fled to the Appalachian Mountains. The poverty Kennedy saw was, in part, a legacy of the era of slavery. President Johnson, a greater ally to Black civil rights leaders than Kennedy had been, took over the program after Kennedy’s assassination and expanded its scope. These programs ultimately helped poor Blacks and poor whites, in both urban and rural areas. In 1987, Reagan quipped, “In the 60s we waged a war on poverty, and poverty won.” That was pretty glib for a President who had just slashed social services by almost 36 percent. What was to keep poor whites from seeing they had lost just as much as poor Blacks? The groundwork had already been laid. It wasn’t Reagan’s fault that social programs had to be cut. The “welfare queens” made him do it. Poor whites were still poorer, but at least they weren’t criminals, and that distinction was critical in their minds. “It’s one of those persistent symbols that come up every election cycle,” says Kaaryn Gustafson, author of Cheating Welfare: Public Assistance and the Criminalization of Poverty. “This image of the lazy African-American woman who refuses to get a job and keeps having kids is pretty enduring. It’s always been a good way to distract the public from any meaningful conversations about poverty and inequality.” Gustafson’s inclusion of inequality is important, because inequalities in both income and wealth distribution would soon begin a steep climb. The reality of Reaganomics was that Americans who gained the most were the nation’s richest ten percent. During periods of economic expansion, the bottom 90 percent saw a decline in income gains. By 2012, those gains had been replaced by losses. image - wealth_chart - see attachment In hindsight, it makes perfect sense that President Reagan would share Don Tyson’s desire for smaller government. In 1986, Reagan said, “The most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” What doesn’t make sense is that America’s white underclass would agree with him. Public assistance programs are easy targets for politicians, thanks in part to the racial divide introduced by slave owners in colonial America. Politicians, the corporate media, and giant employers (like Tyson) have continued to drive socioeconomic wedges between poor whites and poor minorities. Working class whites may view economic struggles as temporary setbacks, and see their use of social services as a last resort. But politicians keep implying that for minorities, public assistance is a way of life. Many social programs — the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Women, Infants and Children (WIC) — provide benefits that cannot be abused. Yet the message to the white underclass was clear: your tax dollars are being squandered on undeserving people looking for a free ride. I can’t speak to how much assistance people with children or disabilities receive, but I can tell you what I received as a single, childless adult with no assets and a zero balance in my checking account. I qualified for less than $200 a month through the SNAP food stamp program. That’s it. I wasn’t living large off the man. I wasn’t kicking back playing video games on a big screen TV. I was struggling to survive until I could find work. I didn’t have the luxury of feeling shame or embarrassment about using food stamps, but I didn’t prance into the grocery store waving my card around, either. At the checkout line, I shielded my card, and myself, from the people around me. I thought, “Fuck you and your judgment.” When I eventually found a job, I no longer qualified for assistance, and I remained poor. My story is common and unremarkable, unlike the fictional tale of welfare recipients driving luxury cars and eating lobster every night. • • • When terrorists attacked the U.S. on September 11, 2001, Americans pulled together. They displayed a unity reminiscent of the weeks following the bombing of Pearl Harbor. President George. W. Bush declared, “America is united.” Ultimately, there would be two versions of unity: one for the rich and one for the poor. The Carlyle Group was named after the luxury hotel where founding members first met in 1987 to discuss the creation of a multinational private equity corporation. In 2001, employees and advisors of the firm included former U.S. President George H. W. Bush; Bush’s former Secretary of State James Baker; former Secretary of Defense Frank C. Carlucci; and former British Prime Minister John Major. Under the guidance of this powerful lineup of Washington insiders and international leaders, the Carlyle Group soon became known for buying businesses related to the defense industry — and tripling their value during wartime. In 2002, they received $677 million in government contracts. By 2003, as the war effort shifted focus from Afghanistan to Iraq in search of weapon of mass destruction, the defense contracts leapt to $2.1 billion. The Carlyle Group wasn’t the only corporation that would profit from the wars. From 2003 to 2013, KBR — a subsidiary of Halliburton, once run by Dick Cheney — was awarded $39.5 billion in government contracts. Other war profiteers include Agility ($7.4 billion), DynCorp ($4.1 billion), and Blackwater ($1.3 billion). By early 2013, private defense contractors had collectively earned more than $138 billion. A 2006 report by the Institute for Policy Studies found that, in 2005, CEOs of the largest U.S. private defense contractors continued to profit from the ongoing wars. Defense CEO pay was 44 times that of a military general with 20 years of experience and 308 times that of an Army private in 2005. Generals made $174,452 and Army privates made $25,085, while average defense CEO pay was $7.7 million. In contrast to wealthy individuals who became even wealthier, those who were sent to do the actual fighting comprised disproportionately high numbers of working class Americans. In the combined efforts of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and Operation Iraqi Freedom, almost 7,000 U.S. soldiers have died. More than 970,000 veteran disability claims have been registered with the Veterans Administration. Returning soldiers face higher unemployment rates than their civilian counterparts, particularly among male veterans age 21 to 24. Between 2009 and 2012, the youngest veterans had an unemployment rate of 21.6 percent, compared to 13.5 percent for civilians. Veterans struggle to find proper healthcare in a system ill-prepared for the number of wounded, particularly those with catastrophic injuries and mental health issues that require long-term care. Private nonprofit organizations have been picking up the slack left by inadequate funding in the federal budget. “Army privates made $25,085, while average defense CEO pay was $7.7 million.” Like their ancestors who fought in and survived the Civil War, today’s soldiers return to find their situations either the same, or much worse, than when they left. Who would blame them for being angry? As soldiers go off to war we say, “God bless our troops.” Maybe we should add, “God help them when they come home.” “My entire life, I’ve watched politicians bragging about how poor they are, how they came from nothing, how poor their parents and grandparents were. And I said to myself, if they can stay so poor for so many generations, maybe this isn’t the kind of person we want to be electing to higher office. How smart can they be? They’re morons.” — Donald Trump, New York Times, 1999, “Liberties; Trump Shrugged” Donald Trump sells himself as a scrappy, self-made man whose vision, tenacity, and business savvy alone have made him one of the world’s most famous billionaires, but Trump is not self-made by any measure. A poster boy for generations of socioeconomic privilege, Trump joined the New York Military Academy at age thirteen, then studied at Fordham University before transferring to the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. During the Vietnam War, Trump was granted five draft deferments — the first four for education, and the last for medical reasons. In 1968, he joined his father’s real estate business, then conservatively valued at $40 million. Donald took over The Trump Organization in 1974 and restyled the company in his image — a special blend of ego, flamboyance, and rabid ambition. He steered clear of the steerage class and catered exclusively to the rich by buying or building luxury residential properties, office buildings, hotels, casinos, golf courses, and resorts. Capital from his father’s company wasn’t Trump’s only empire-building head start. He depended on both government and private assistance, too, including tax abatements, financial support from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), investors, and, during the company’s 1990 massive financial troubles, a bailout pact involving seventy banks. In his 2000 book, The America We Deserve, Trump criticized governmental interference in American business. He wrote, “The greatest threat to the American Dream is the idea that dreamers need close government scrutiny and control. Job one for us is to make sure the public sector does a limited job, and no more.” Trump didn’t seem threatened by the public sector’s involvement in his four corporate bankruptcies. Trump told Forbes in April 2011, “Basically I’ve used the laws of the country to my advantage and to other people’s advantage … just as many, many others on top of the business world have.” In his eyes, Trump is a self-made entrepreneur who refuses to acknowledge the millions of dollars of family, public, and private assistance that helped him realize his gilt, mirrored glass, and pink marble American dream. Government regulations that stifle ambition are a threat to American dreamers everywhere, but laws that can be used to the advantage of top-of-the-business-world warriors are just fine. It makes perfect sense that Trump would share Ronald Reagan’s and Don Tyson’s desire for smaller government. What doesn’t make sense is that America’s white underclass would agree with him. Big or small, our government has failed everyone but the wealthiest class. Most politicians barely maintain a pretense of representing the people — except during election years when they talk about “issues” and make promises they have no intention of keeping. Once in office, they become puppets of the richest ten percent of Americans. If you think I’m exaggerating, watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tu32CCA_Ig Donald Trump is a business man. Until recently, money and fame were everything to him. He measured his success by his ranking in the Forbes 400 list of billionaires. Now, Trump wants power and control, too. Like wealthy plantation owners who just happened to be politicians, Trump does not need to be bought; he is already rich enough. From a business perspective, he’s trying to cut out the middle man — the politicians who have become puppets of the wealthy elite. I’m just a poor white trash motherfucker. No one cares about me. What if some people did care, but the wealthy pushed them away? • • • Marginalized people have been fighting for equality for decades. Admittedly, in the quest to fight for the oppressed — people of color, women, religious minorities, the LGBTQ community — we often overlook the fact that classism never completely disappeared. For the white underclass, it’s tempting to feel left out of this fight. But how can people fighting for social equality include poor whites who see them as the enemy? If poor and working class whites who chant, “Trump, Trump, Trump,” believe they have little in common with these “enemies,” they are mistaken. We are all sides of the same coin, a coin that has been held in the pocket of the elite class since the first settlers arrived in the American colonies. I’m no one special. I am a poor, uneducated, white woman. I am the white underclass, and I am no one’s enemy. I fight for racial equality because people of color are not my enemy. Gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender people are not my enemy. Immigrants and refugees are not my enemy. Muslims are not my enemy. Native Americans are not my enemy. Single mothers and fathers are not my enemy. People on Medicare, disability, food stamps, and unemployment are not my enemy. The homeless are not my enemy. And it turns out that the people of a small Arkansas town in the middle of the Ozarks are not my enemy. Other poor people are not the enemy, no matter how they look, how they pray, or who they love. They are fighting to be heard. They are people who, like Trump supporters, agree with the statement, “People like me don’t have any say about what the government does.” “Other poor people aren't the enemy, no matter how they look, how they pray, or who they love.” Trump supporters believe he’s different. They believe that he cares about us, that he tells it like it is, that he gives us a voice, that he can’t be bought because he’s already rich, that he’s railing against politics as usual. But does Trump care about the white underclass, or does he still think poor people are “morons”? Did slave owners care about white indentured servants when they pitted them against African slaves, or did they want to ensure a steady supply of cheap labor? Did Ronald Reagan care about poor white people when he trotted out the fictional welfare queen, or did he need a budget item to cut? Do wealthy elites and politicians care about poor and middle class people when they send them off to war, or are they anticipating massive profits? Trump is railing against establishment politics not because he cares about the white underclass, but because he needs us — for now. He isn’t reaching out a hand to lift us up. He wants to stand on our shoulders so we can lift him up. For more than four hundred years, wealthy elites have depended on the white underclass to “help keep America great.” But who are we keeping it great for? When will we realize we have more in common with all poor people than with rich capitalists and corrupt politicians who manipulate the system to increase their own wealth, power, and control? Instead of wondering which billionaire will finally reach out a hand to raise us up, we should stop waiting and start acting. • • • “The Revolution is coming and it is a very beautiful revolution.” “There must be better distribution of wealth and maybe America must move toward a democratic socialism.” One of these quotes is from Martin Luther King Jr. in 1966; the other is from Bernie Sanders in 1969. Bernie Sanders was born into a working-class home. His father dropped out of high school and supported the family as a paint salesman after coming to the U.S. from Poland and struggling through the Great Depression. Later, after the war, they would find out most of his family died in the Holocaust. From this, Bernie Sanders learned a life lesson, “An election in 1932 ended up killing 50 million people around the world.” By the time Bernie graduated from college, he was alone. His brother had moved to England for work, and both of his parents had died. He moved to Vermont and held a variety of low-wage jobs, spending many of the following years broke. He is quoted in a New Yorker article as saying, “I do know what it’s like when the electric company shuts off the electricity and the phone company shuts off the phone — all that stuff. So, for me, to talk to working-class people is not very hard.” He bootstrapped his way into politics and has remained loyal to the poor and working class for more than thirty years. He is not a millionaire. He has not built a fortune from his position holding office. He doesn’t make money by keeping others poor or sending them to war. He doesn’t gain power by keeping people silent. Donald Trump would have you believe Sanders is a “loser” for not taking financial advantage of his position. I prefer to call him one of our own. Bernie Sanders doesn’t say that if you are poor, it’s your own damn fault. He says if you are poor, take my hand. Together we can lift you up. His campaign isn’t about freebies or handouts. It’s about opportunity. It’s about believing that, given a chance and an even playing field, the poor and working class can achieve their dreams. He knows this because he has lived it. Sanders’ revolution is about lifting the hand of oppression so we can all move forward in equality. It is about everyone having the same opportunity to paint their walls in shades of possibility. When we have been pushed down for so long, it can become impossible to see whose hands are keeping us there. Is it really welfare queens or immigrant laborers or Muslims, as Trump claims? I say no, because those people have so little power. Maybe the answer lies not in looking up, but in looking sideways and recognizing that our poor neighbors, who may be different than us, are struggling too. Maybe if we all look up together, we can see more clearly that the hand of oppression belongs only to those who have always had money, power, and control. Those are the real enemies. The real enemies fear us. They know that if we come together, we will have the numbers on our side. They’ve always known this and it terrifies them. We must stop doing what they want: fighting among ourselves and allowing ourselves to be held down by their fear. We must direct a truly united voice against those who, four hundred years ago, created the American Dream and then held it out of reach. We must join together and fight back against the wealthy elite and corporate politicians. We must build a new country that belongs to all of us, a country where no one ever has to feel like just a poor motherfucker no one cares about. Headshot-Jonna-100 Jonna Ivin is STIR’s founder. Read her riveting bio http://www.stirjournal.com/who-we-are/

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Iceland recap - Icelandic Justice and Criminal Bankers
by Zenaan Harkness 17 Apr '16

17 Apr '16

An update on the current state of affairs - also note the second last paragraph - now ex- prime minister Gunnlaugsson resigned/ stepped down due to "Panama Papers", as he was "the only Western politician who was directly mentioned in those papers". Just who do those Nords think they are, putting bankers in jail?!!?!!! Who ever heard of such preposterosity?! http://journal-neo.org/2016/04/17/icelandic-justice-and-criminal-bankers/ 17.04.2016 Author: F. William Engdahl Icelandic Justice and Criminal Bankers Column: Society Region: Europe On September 15, 2008, a former Goldman Sachs chairman, US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulsen, deliberately triggered a predictable global financial meltdown when he decided to break precedent and let Lehman Bros, the fourth-largest Wall Street investment bank, go bankrupt. The reasons for his decision are for another time. The fallout from that traumatic financial crisis remains very much with the world financial system to this day, more than seven years later. One of the little-noticed casualties of that Lehman Bros. debacle was the worst banking crisis in the history of one of the world’s smallest countries, Iceland. How that country of 323,000 citizens chose to deal with the crisis is a model for the rest of the world. Instead of beatifying the criminal bankers responsible for worst world financial crisis in history, the people of Iceland did something quite different. Iceland, a beautiful Nordic island in the far North Atlantic between Greenland and Norway, with active volcanoes, streams with some of the most delicious non-industrial and non-GMO wild salmon, self-sufficient in energy from thermal springs and hydroelectric power, got lured into the mad, greed-driven frenzy of the US sub-prime real estate crisis in a big way. In October 2008, amid the global financial Tsunami triggered by Paulsen’s Lehman act, the Iceland government nationalized the three largest private banks, Glitnir, Landsbanki and Kaupthing, following depositor panic withdrawals. The three banks, in a few short years after they were privatized had managed to amass debts ten times Iceland’s annual DGP. When a group of sensible US economists proposed Paulsen nationalize the top Wall Street banks behind the crisis–JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs– to restore order and keep credit flowing to the real economy, he replied that would be “socialism. We don’t do that in America.” Instead, Paulsen’s US Treasury used hundreds of billions of US taxpayer dollars to buy non-voting shares of the Wall Street banks, meaning the Government didn’t demand any say in the banks’ policies in return. That might be called bankers’ socialism–privatize the profits and socialize the losses. By November 2008 the UK and Dutch investors in a now-defunct savings scheme of Landsbanki, Icesave, found their hundreds of millions of Pounds of investments were, indeed, frozen like ice—their savings were frozen ice. When the British government demanded of the Iceland government the repayment of the deposits in the UK branches of the formerly private Landsbanki bank, an international dispute, known as the Icesave dispute, erupted. The British government invoked anti-terrorism legislation against Iceland in order to freeze the UK-based assets of Kaupthing, Iceland’s biggest bank, bankrupting the bank. Iceland’s government turned to the IMF for a $5 billion bailout, the first European country since Italy in 1976 to do so. Citizen revolt The Governor of the Iceland Central Bank, David Oddsson went against the government of Geir Haarde, who had been complicit in facilitating the private bankers’s criminal Ponzi schemes, and stated on national TV, “Icelanders will not pay the debts of profligate financiers ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Icelandic_financial_crisis ).” In January 2009 Haarde’s coalition was forced to resign following massive protests as unemployment soared from 1% before the crisis to over 9% in months. The IMF, as always, was demanding severe Greek-like austerity from the government as condition for its bailout. In September 2010, Haarde became the first Icelandic minister to be indicted for misconduct in office, and the only politician in the world to be charged with responsibility for the financial crisis. He stood trial before a special court for official offenses, the Landsdómur. He was convicted on one count. The Haarde government had twice negotiated terms under which Iceland would repay the UK and the Netherlands governments, with interest, for the cost of bailing out Icesave savers. The IMF demanded it as condition for its money. And Parliament bowed. But Iceland’s staunchly independent voters twice passed popular referenda rejecting the UK, Dutch and IMF demands. Under the IMF austerity program, until it was ended in 2011, Iceland went into an economic depression. Disposable income fell by a quarter, and 30,000 people – one-tenth of the population – went into serious loan default; thousands of homes were repossessed ( http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/06/iceland-financial-recovery-ban… ). In April, 2013, 38-year-old Prime Minister, Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson, was elected on promises of mortgage relief for every homeowner instead of relief for foreign bank bondholders in Iceland’s three failed banks. His government left international bondholders and depositors out in the cold, as his government and Icelandic bank administrators froze some 9 billion Pound sterling in foreign assets the three banks held at the time of nationalization ( http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/06/iceland-financial-recovery-ban… ). The new Finance Minister imposed a 39% tax on Icelanders wanting to invest money abroad, as well as imposing capital controls, a move that stabilized the currency. Most tellingly, the government prioritized saving its people and economy and prosecuting and even jailing the private bankers and politicians responsible for the crisis, a 180-degree contrast to the US or EU where governments used taxpayer money to bail out the criminal banks responsible for the fraud in the first place. Jail the corrupt bankers! On November 15, 2015, Iceland courts convicted the 26th banker involved in the scandal that burst in September 2008. The bankers who have gone to prison were charged with crimes ranging from insider trading to fraud, money laundering, misleading markets, breach of fiduciary duties, lying to the authorities, market manipulation to embezzlement. Combined, the 26 jailed bankers will serve some 74 years behind bars. As well, to date criminal fines totaling $212 billion have been imposed on the 20 biggest banks. More bankers await trial ( http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/iceland-has-jailed-26-bankers-why-wont-… ). By contrast, at the failed British HBOS bank group, the largest UK mortgage lending bank, taxpayers were forced to make a $29 billion taxpayer bailout. The UK Financial Services Authority’s only enforcement was against the head of corporate lending who was fined £500,000 and banned from the financial services industry, and loss, (the dishonor!) of knighthood for one HBOS director. In the failed Royal Bank of Scotland, also bailed out by taxpayers billions, Fred Goodwin, the head of Royal Bank of Scotland also lost his knighthood. He had been knighted in 2004 for awarded in 2004 for “services to banking.” In the USA, not even a whisper of criminal charges against the CEOs or directors of JP Morgan Chase or Goldman Sachs or Citigroup has been heard. Government fines against various banks are written off and the same criminals that Iceland put behind bars are left free. The Iceland difference Today Iceland is the successful model for the precise opposite of the IMF Greece model of squeezing blood from a stone with brutal austerity. It is the first and so far only European country to surpass the 2007 pre-crisis economic levels. GDP grew for the first six months of 2015 at an impressive 5.6%. Inflation went from 18% at the start of the 2008 crisis to 2% by 2015. National debt went from 88% of GDP in 2010 to 81%, below most EU levels. In March 2015, the government of Iceland officially withdrew its earlier candidacy to join the European Union, the only country ever to do so. Paradoxically, Prime-Minister Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson was caught in the middle of the Panama Papers scandal and was forced to resign due to the fact that he didn’t disclose all the financial assets that were in his possession. His was the only Western politician who was directly mentioned in those papers, which seems odd at best. However, Iceland is still reluctant to back down. Iceland’s President, Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, explained the feelings of his countrymen: “We were wise enough not to follow the traditional prevailing orthodoxies of the Western financial world in the last 30 years. We introduced currency controls, we let the banks fail, we provided support for the poor, and we didn’t introduce austerity measures like you’re seeing in Europe. Why are the banks considered to be the holy churches of the modern economy? Why are private banks not like airlines and telecommunication companies and allowed to go bankrupt if they have been run in an irresponsible way? The theory that you have to bail out banks is a theory that you allow bankers enjoy for their own profit, their success, and then let ordinary people bear their failure through taxes and austerity ( http://www.loansafe.org/iceland-sentences-26-corrupt-bankers-to-74-years-in… ). “

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The Closet Russian in Wolf’s Clothing - but may be not quite as you'd think
by Zenaan Harkness 17 Apr '16

17 Apr '16

Comedy gold - or perhaps not even bronze for some, but hey, there's at least a one in 7 billion chance this might tickle your funny bone. Enjoy. http://journal-neo.org/2016/04/16/donald-trump-loves-vladimir-putin-what-th… 16.04.2016 Author: Seth Ferris Donald Trump Loves Vladimir Putin: What the Hell is Going On? Column: Politics Region: USA in the World 4534544The world follows every US Presidential election race because the outcome affects billions of peoples’ lives. There isn’t a country anywhere untouched by US policy. So it matters a great deal who is in charge, and what the person is likely to do if elected. As most Americans are observing with some horror, the Republican primaries are consistently throwing up the scenario even that party’s establishment doesn’t want. Despite all the party bosses’ attempts to stop him, billionaire businessman and reality TV star Donald Trump has emerged as the most popular candidate. At the time of writing Trump had gained the support of around 755 pledged delegates, as opposed to 521 for his nearest rival, Ted Cruz of Texas. Despite being considered a joke at the beginning of the campaign, Trump is so far ahead that 90% of the remaining delegates would have to pledge for Cruz to stop Trump becoming the Republican presidential candidate. Trump is scaring people because he is not so much right-wing as from another planet. He has views on immigrants, the poor, and the unemployed which would make the most reactionary dictators in history blush. He also happily accepts being labelled a fascist in a country with a large and sensitive Jewish population. Therefore it would be entirely consistent for this man to be virulently anti-Russian, as Russia has long been synonymous, in American eyes, with all the things Trump thinks are wrong with the country.But nothing could be further from the truth. Trump has expressed great admiration for Vladimir Putin, and pledged to work with him, as an ally, if he becomes president. Putin in turn has described Trump as an “outstanding man” and “unquestionably talented ( http://2016.presidential-candidates.org/Trump/?on=russia )”. The US-Soviet rapprochement under Ronald Reagan, who frequently referred to the USSR as the “Evil Empire”, seemed amazing at the time. But it is nowhere near as weird as a US-Russia friendship with Trump in charge. Wouldn’t Trump rather nuke the place to bits and fill what’s left of it with Mexicans?What on earth is going on? The Joke That Is All Too Serious Trump is striking a chord with a significant portion of the US electorate because only the US could have produced a Donald Trump. The characteristics of that society have made him what he is, and even his opponents have to accept that he is a recognisable, albeit unpleasant, face of their country. You can often tell what a country is like when you see what provokes a response there but not elsewhere. For example, in France it is a very serious offence to write an anonymous letter, even an anodyne or complimentary one, because people remember the anonymous denunciations of members of the Resistance to the Nazis. Other countries do not see what the fuss is about. In the US there is an attitude towards big business which other countries never quite get. In most countries businessmen are seen as boring, or the enemies of the ordinary man. They wear their own clothes, speak their own language and have concerns which the rest of the world aren’t interested in; the business section of a newspaper is the one you most often find discarded on a train or bus. In the US it is different. Becoming a big businessman from humble origins is the so-called American Dream. Only millionaires can effectively compete in national politics, not simply because there are no spending limits but because that is how they gain the necessary public respect. Business is a glamorous world in the US, and top businessmen are celebrities in the same way rock stars and actors are in other countries, because they are what every American is told they should aspire to be. Trump was a celebrity long before he started appearing on business advice programmes, simply because he was a famous businessman. Not for him the corporate dinners and army of secretaries to protect him from the public. Only in America could someone like Trump be the subject of a Comedy Central Celebrity Roast, in which comedians line up to insult someone the audience know as a household name ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nwborH3Dq4&list=PLIdyfW1oW4yRpE4-47EHlT1cm… ). But this celebrity doesn’t come with anything else. It isn’t earned by having anything to say, simply by the machinery of American society itself, as Martin Scorsese’s film “The King of Comedy” cruelly exposed ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJ2Lc0txkbk ). The last thing Americans want is for such celebrities to say and do anything reasonable, which reduces them to the level of mere mortals. They have to be larger than life to remain celebrities and icons, and Trump is now working this to the full. The Republican Party has long argued that a liberal intelligentsia has imposed alien views on the ordinary American. It is no coincidence that the outrageous radio “shock jocks” who go out of their way to be confrontational are right-wing, not radical left as they would be in most countries. As Fareed Zakaria has pointed out, Republicans have openly courted racists and made wilful ignorance into a badge of honour to reposition themselves as the anti-political party. Now Trump is capitalising on his celebrity the only way he is allowed to. He could never be a serious candidate – Reagan only became a politician years after giving up acting. By articulating the most extreme positions, he is giving a voice to those who do a lot of noisy posturing to distance themselves from practical politicians who can’t afford to deal in slogans for the sake of it. Trump is the Republican Frankenstein’s monster, the man they have encouraged Americans to admire, however much they are trying to subvert him now. But what is the US itself? Does it act in the civilized, humane way it preaches, or go around the world adopting the same attitudes towards others as Trump does, and taking the same action against them as Trump advocates? The Closet Russian in Wolf’s Clothing In fact Putin has very good reasons for wanting to work with Trump, and vice versa. Both Trump’s Republican and Democratic rivals are quite content to continue with the traditional US policy of saying one thing and doing the other. The fact that Hillary Clinton is leading the Democratic race demonstrates this. Trump really will try and do what he says, even though most of what he says is obnoxious and cannot be done. Putin will know what he is getting with Trump, and has good reason to think that the world is better off with honesty, even if it is stupid in content. Similarly, Dangerous Donald is very happy to take Putin on the terms the US wants to take him on. In his comic book world, Putin is a tough guy who swaggers around doing whatever he wants. While most of the US would see this as a negative thing, this is what Trump himself desperately wants to be. He’d rather have Putin in the same gang than another one, when he knows his own wealth and fame were built on bluster rather than being the genius he presents himself as. If Putin has to work with Trump he will work with the real America, and be very happy doing so. At present, he waits for the US to compromise itself and then takes the same action himself to undermine US hegemony. With Trump in charge, he won’t have to wait. The US will openly do what it pretends not to now, and Putin will advance Russia’s interests every time Donald opens his mouth. Actions Speak Louder Than Reality Trump supporters, who were told he had no chance, are now displaying their colours with increasing bravado. Recent Trump rallies have descended into riots, with his own supporters trying to out-tough each other ( http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/donald-trump/12193995/Donald-Trum… ). With his hate rhetoric attracting people precisely because they know that the “liberal intelligentsia” rejects it, violence is similarly seen as a manifestation of “True Americanness” because it will be even more condemned by the same people. The reason Trump’s admiration for Putin has not seen him branded a closet liberal by these people, as it should logically have done, is because he has given a particular reason for it. He has stated, quite reasonably, that the US is wasting money on all the conflicts it is involved in and these interventions have left all those countries worse off than before. Trump ascribes this waste of US money and lives to the liberal intelligentsia mentality of getting involved in civil conflicts for arcane policy reasons, whilst ignoring the “real issues” that matter to the average American. Ultimately, he sees this mentality as more dangerous to America than anything the Russians might do, a new departure in US politics of any colour. Trump knows that Americans want action. Politics is talk, but bombing terrorists is action. In fact he has recently alienated the US Army brass by saying that the Geneva Convention is a “problem” which prevents the US doing what it wants ( http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/mar/31/donald-trump-geneva-conventi… ). This raises questions about his Constitutional fitness to be Commander-in-Chief, which raises interesting questions about whether the courts would intervene if he were elected. Trump regards Putin’s involvement in Syria as the sort of forthright anti-terrorist action he wants to take himself, and derides his own country for turning stable countries into hotbeds of terrorism. Forget about politics, and the multitude of civil issues which need to be handled at any given time by any given politician:in the eyes of Trump, if you fight fire with fire, and enlist all the tough guys you can to support you, America becomes great again. That is, in essence, the entire foreign policy of Donald Trump. But this attitude is not confined to foreign affairs. He maintains that foreigners aren’t welcome in the US because they are potential terrorists, and so are all welfare claimants because they aren’t making millions like good Americans should. Trump himself is of immigrant descent, as are nearly all American citizens, and has filed for bankruptcy four times, making him less financially viable than a welfare claimant. But none of this matters if he is tougher than the next guy, even though others have to do the dirty work for him. In Trump’s world order Russia will be expected to take a tougher line against international terrorism to make Trump look better. It will earn international brownie points by doing so, and be given a free hand to pursue its every ambition as long as it calls it “fighting terrorism.” This free hand is what the US itself has demanded for so long, while trying to dress it up in other terms. A Trump presidency would end Russian resistance to this by buying it off with the same bauble. Not As Good As It Looks In such a scenario, America’s long sponsorship of terrorism will be one of the casualties of the ongoing international revolt against the political class. Not a bad thing, most would agree. But what will it be replaced with? Ongoing attempts to call everyone a terrorist in order to perpetuate a culture of celebrity designed to prevent Americans addressing the very “real issues” Trump says he wants the politicians to? Celebrities such as Trump are treated as untouchable superheroes. As such, they relate to great historical figures whose reputation has put them in the same category. Trump would doubtless like to bracket himself with one such figure in particular; Richard the Lionheart, the legendary English king who spent all his time engaged in brilliant combat for Christendom in the Holy Land during the Crusades, the stuff of poems and ballads and the ideal of chivalry. Richard the Lionheart avoided his own country as much as possible and used it purely as a cash cow, practically ruining it in the process. He was also several things his own people found unacceptable – an admitted homosexual and, very probably, unable to speak any English, as a Norman Frenchman. That is precisely why he has become a great hero – if you look at him and his reign from any other angle, he appears so negatively that there is little else to say about him. Donald Trump sees Vladimir Putin as his ally in creating a ruinous world for the sake of his own glory. Much of his country is giving him that opportunity, through its own inherent weakness. It is true that Russia has much to gain from jumping on this bandwagon in the short-term – but Russia is not America. Putin can play Trump for a long time, but he too will ultimately have to get back to the real business before it’s too late, as will the American people. Seth Ferris, investigative journalist and political scientist, expert on Middle Eastern affairs, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

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Russia following in America's failed "war on drugs" footsteps, it seems
by Zenaan Harkness 16 Apr '16

16 Apr '16

Being a great fan of personal liberty to the extent the individual does not harm another, I can only wholeheartedly support the premises and observations laid out in the following article. The "war" on drugs not only does not reduce crime, number of prisoners, nor as far as we can see since Vietnam nor does it reduce drug use, but as far as I can tell, the war on drugs only fuels crime, creating the black markets, creating criminals, causing great angst and physical health problems for those who are addicted, and drastically increasing the prison population of "criminals" for victimless "crimes". Humans will be human. There will always be those humans who wish to experiment, or to make life long use their choice or addicted non-choice as the case may be, whether their drug(s) of choice be alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, cocaine, heroine, ice, ecstasy or anything else. Humans will be human and so logically there is NO FIRETRUCKING POINT in making crimes out of "normal" human behaviour and choices, where those choices and behaviours harm no one other than (at most) the individual themselves. Prohibition never worked. Alcohol got legalized again, marijuana is on a slowish road to re-legalization and many of us are aware of DuPont's cotton empire and political connections causing the prohibition of marijuana. Indeed, prohibition has only -ever- made the reality on the ground, for the users/ addicted to that which is prohibited, much worse, except of course for those police, government, military and other outlaw gangs who profit from the prohibition - read Victoria Police Corruption (Hoser) for various Australian examples. We can only hope that the tending to be somewhat more intellectual "public conversation" that occurs in Russia will turn to such rational observations, be supported with bold honest public discussion, and that they can move their collective political selves in the only rational "harm minimization" direction - legalizing all drugs, at the very least on prescription for those who are addicted. All together now let us pray, pray for the poppies. ... http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/mirroring-america-why-russias-war-dru… Mirroring America: Why Russia's War on Drugs Will Fail Russia seems determined to pursue a drug policy which over the last 40 years has failed resoundingly in the United States and world wide

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Yee haw folks, it's on - World "money ho$" Bank jumps in bed with AIIB - BRICS undoubtedly to come next
by Zenaan Harkness 15 Apr '16

15 Apr '16

Goood morning multi polar world! Damn. Nothin like that fresh smell in the morning, the smell of money! " http://thebricspost.com/china-led-aiib-world-bank-to-approve-joint-projects… China-led AIIB, World Bank to approve joint projects in June April 14, 2016, 6:35 am Picture: World Bank President Jim Yong Kim (R) and Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) President Jin Liqun exchange documents after signing the first co-financing framework agreement at the headquarters of World Bank in Washington D.C., the United States, April 13, 2016 [Xinhua] The China-led AIIB, alongwith the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank will approve the first batch of co-financed projects in June, AIIB President Jin Liqun said Wednesday. “I would say a huge amount of chemistry has already been nurtured between the AIIB and the World Bank, the AIIB and the ADB,” Jin said at an event in Washington. <Love birds now? Certainly were not love at first sight :D> “We are working with the World Bank and the ADB for co-financing. Maybe in June, we could have couples of projects approved by the World Bank, by the ADB, and by us” he said. <couples in bed, couples of projects, money for all> The US had officially opposed the creation of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) ( http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/23c51438-64ca-11e5-a28b-50226830d644.html - <southpark/ Team America voice over: "Nooo Shiiit"> ). The emergence of the world’s first major multilateral development bank in a generation had riled up many at the World Bank. <they ignore you, laugh at you, fight you, then you win - when money's at stake, they join you> The China-led international lender, AIIB, is also “processing freestanding projects” prepared by its own experts, Jin said on Wednesday. <we no tied to you, just letting our partners know we didn't sell out> “Infrastructure projects are very large. <very very large, lots of money, big money projects> It’s not a very good idea for one bank to spend 2 billion or 3 billion U.S. dollars on one project,” he said, adding that there is vast room for cooperation among multilateral development banks. <cooperation is certainly better than war, and mutual investment means shared interest and hopefully less war - hey, I can hope can't I??> The $100-billion Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank will boost infrastructure investment in Asia and improve integration, China’s President Xi Jinping said in January this year. <America - shittin BRICs?? nah, joined them now... it's a good sign I say, a positive development towards a stable world order - I'm just hoping the more multi-lateral BRICS bank takes prime position on the world stage ... we really need to nip any hegemonic tendencies in the butt I'd say> In its first year of operation, the AIIB expects to approve about $1.2 billion in financing, some of these will be in joint projects with the World Bank. “When we work together, we can actually help the host country improve its macroeconomic policy environment,” he argued. <And so this way we make use of at least some of your useless U$Dollars which we hold so many of, otherwise we would just collapse you tomorrow, better you collapse yourself, stupid idiots, then we not take blame for your freekin greed and fleepin stupidity> As the pent-up demand for infrastructure could be as high as 10 trillion dollars over the next decade, Jin said there’s no competition but “only cooperation and coordination” between the AIIB and other development banks. <everybody happy profit> On Wednesday, the AIIB and the World Bank signed the first co-financing framework agreement, paving the way for their cooperation on joint projects this year. “Signing this agreement enables our institutions to finance development projects together, and that is an important first step toward working with a new partner to address the world’s huge infrastructure needs,” World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said. While there are huge demands for infrastructure in Asia, Jin said the AIIB has to “be selective” and invest in good projects that meet its standards of “financially sustainable, environmentally friendly and socially acceptable.” Given the broad definition of infrastructure in the bank’s mandate, Jin said the AIIB could provide finance for non-physical infrastructure like health and education in the future. <laying solid foundations for a new world reserve bank - evidently irresistible for those who lost their "one world hegemon" gambit> Jin also noted that the AIIB could support projects under China’s Belt and Road initiative, but it was not created exclusively for this initiative. “We would finance infrastructure projects in all emerging market economies even though they don’t belong to the Belt and Road initiative,” he said. The AIIB has 57 prospective founding members, including some key US allies, with an authorized capital of $100 billion. <even Australia jumped in on BRICS bank, which was sort of surprising considering what slutty lapdogs of the US we've been for so long> The bank was formally established in Beijing in December last year and started operation in January. The AIIB is one of three entities China is promoting, along with a joint $100 billion BRICS Development Bank and a $40 billion Silk Road Fund. TBP and Agencies " So US power players decided they not want to sing too many refrains of "I'm ronely, so ronely" joining the party instead.

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fwd: DARPA GC
by dan＠geer.org 14 Apr '16

14 Apr '16

DARPA will hold the world's first all-computer Capture the Flag tournament in which automated systems may take the first steps toward a defensible, connected future. DARPA's goal for the Cyber Grand Challenge (CGC) is to spur an automation revolution in computer security so machines can discover, confirm and fix software flaws within seconds, instead of waiting up to a year as is typical under the current human-centric system. DARPA believes these capabilities are essential if the nation and world are to take full advantage of the increasingly interlinked big-data revolution while protecting data and processes-especially as more and more devices, including vehicles and homes, get connected to the "Internet of Things". Seven teams from across the United States have qualified to compete in the Final Event. Nearly $4 million in prizes are at stake-along with the chance to help revolutionize the future of cybersecurity. The winning team will receive $2 million; second place will earn $1 million; and third place will earn $750,000. The CGC Final Event will take place August 4, 2016, live on stage co-located with the DEF CON 24 conference in Las Vegas. For more information, please visit: http://www.cybergrandchallenge.com DARPA: Cyber Grand Challenge Final Event WHAT: The World's First All Machine Hacking Tournament WHEN: Thursday, August 4, 2016 (5:00pm - 8:00pm PCT) WHERE: Paris Hotel and Conference Center, Las Vegas, NV To learn more about the Cyber Grand Challenge, check out DARPA Program Manager Mike Walker on 60 Minutes (https://youtu.be/OVV_k73z3E0) and his DEF CON presentation about DARPA's fully automated capture the flag hacking tournament (https://youtu.be/gnyCbU7jGYA) Cyber Grand Challenge Finals are a free event open to the public; no attendance fee is required but visitors wishing to stay for DEF CON note: The DEF CON conference requires an attendance fee - please go to defcon.org for more details. Please pass on to those who may be interested. http://www.cybergrandchallenge.com/ DARPA Adaptive Execution Office - Cyber Grand Challenge Team For additional questions/inquires please contact : AEO-CGC-Team(a)darpa.mil

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Re: cypherpunks Digest, Vol 34, Issue 18
by Muntu Debugger 14 Apr '16

14 Apr '16

Change in climate <http://www.ipage.com/join/index.bml?AffID=837795&LinkName=weblink> is very noticeable, but there is something we can DO!! <http://www.ipage.com/join/index.bml?AffID=837795&LinkName=weblink> On Wed, Apr 13, 2016 at 7:00 PM, <cypherpunks-request(a)cpunks.org> wrote: > Send cypherpunks mailing list submissions to > cypherpunks(a)cpunks.org > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > https://cpunks.org/mailman/listinfo/cypherpunks > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > cypherpunks-request(a)cpunks.org > > You can reach the person managing the list at > cypherpunks-owner(a)cpunks.org > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of cypherpunks digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. Re: Do you notice significant persistent change in climate? > (Ted Smith) > 2. The Feudal Economy Is A Government-Spying-Compliant Economy - > Uber Edition (Rayzer) > 3. #FBIvApple: Cellbrite was just a ruse. "The Greys" cracked > it. (Rayzer) > 4. Re: #FBIvApple: Cellbrite was just a ruse. "The Greys" > cracked it. (Jack Liddy) > 5. Re: The Feudal Economy Is A Government-Spying-Compliant > Economy - Uber Edition (Georgi Guninski) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2016 12:43:09 -0400 > From: Ted Smith <tedks(a)riseup.net> > To: cypherpunks(a)cpunks.org > Subject: Re: Do you notice significant persistent change in climate? > Message-ID: <1460479389.3610.0.camel(a)riseup.net> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" > > I try to live as cypherpunk a lifestyle as possible, so I rarely > venture out of doors. Why both with climate when we have climate > control? > > On Wed, 2016-04-06 at 15:49 +0300, Georgi Guninski wrote: > > Do you notice significant persistent change in climate during your > > lifetime? > > > > Also increase in major natural disasters (not counting m$ products/ > > services)? > > > > I do in Bulgaria, SE Europe. > -- > Sent from Ubuntu > >

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Method FBI used to crack iPhone likely effects recent phones
by Nathan Andrew Fain 14 Apr '16

14 Apr '16

https://deadhacker.com/2016/03/25/the-terrorists-phone/ tldr; NAND proxy to prevent wipe. Instigate fake phantom wipe to reset counter+delay for passcode attempts. This was published only a few days before the news that the FBI cracked the iPhone. So it is highly unlikely that the information disclosed was used by their hackers. But based on recent information the attack described in that post, in my obviously biased opinion, seems increasingly probable. Also so far I found nothing in the iOS Security documentation that indicates this attack will NOT work on most recent iPhones. Though it could be that I simply missed an important detail.

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#FBIvApple: Cellbrite was just a ruse. "The Greys" cracked it.
by Rayzer 14 Apr '16

14 Apr '16

The FBI hired shady grey digital mercenaries (my apologies if I butthurt anyone on this list or their friends) to crack the San Bernardino shooter's iPhone. Washington Post: The people who helped the U.S. government come from the sometimes shadowy world of hackers and security researchers who profit from finding flaws in companies’ software or systems. Some hackers, known as “white hats,” disclose the vulnerabilities to the firms responsible for the software or to the public so they can be fixed and are generally regarded as ethical. Others, called “black hats,” use the information to hack networks and steal people’s personal information. At least one of the people who helped the FBI in the San Bernardino case falls into a third category, often considered ethically murky: researchers who sell flaws — for instance, to governments or to companies that make surveillance tools. This last group, dubbed “gray hats,” More: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/fbi-paid-professiona… -- RR "Through counter-intelligence it should be possible to pinpoint potential trouble-makers ... And neutralize them, neutralize them, neutralize them"

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