The DISH
Unbossed and unbought news and information you can use
Vol. 11 Issue 42…Dedicated to the Dialogue on Race…October 19, 2008
Intuit's Vibe
Victim Blaming
By SarahNSH
The memory is seared in my mind,
still sizzling as the image slowly cools.
There are two women,
one searches for scraps in a trash can
outside of a
People stream in and
out of the building like bees in a hive.
I can't help but to stare as I approach.
The women are oblivious to their surroundings,
the lady who isn't fishing through the garbage
shouts at a young man ahead of me. Or so,
it seems, though her eyes aren't focused on him
and he strides past her, completely unfazed.
I can't understand the words that flow from
her mouth, sounding as if she is gargling
water and speaking at
the same time.
Their clothes are tattered, torn,
filthy, holding themselves in a hunched
position. I'm disgusted by the idea of hands
grouping for food others have carelessly
tossed away and consuming whatever they find.
I know it must not only be these two,
many others go through this practice of scavenging
as if they are
vultures consuming rotted flesh.
I feel sympathy, compassion, revolution,
so much at once. We blame the victim for
the situation that they have put themselves
in. Using the explanations of they did drugs.
Whether that be crack, cocaine, heroine, and
they deserve to
suffer for their misdeeds.
Anyone can become homeless,
even me. Placing all the responsible on
the people who live this life is an easy way
to free our conscience. Just in case if
what we see haunts our thoughts for not
helping or choosing
not to care.
Warm underneath our covers with
the illusion that it
can never be us.
Troy
On Wednesday, Chatham
County Judge Penny Haas Freesemann signed the death warrant of Troy Davis for
the August 19, 1989 murder of off-duty police officer Mark Allen MacPhail. For
the third time, the Georgia Department of Corrections scheduled
Anti-death penalty advocates,
including former US President Jimmy Carter, Pope Benedict XVI, Amnesty
International USA, Rama Yade, minister of state for foreign affairs and human
rights for France, and countless others have called on the Georgia Board of
Pardons and Paroles to stop this miscarriage of justice in order to prevent the
execution of an innocent man. Seven of the nine key prosecution witnesses to
the brutal murder of officer MacPhail have since recanted their testimony,
claiming they were pressured to say they saw
Originally,
On October 14, 2008, the US
Supreme Court, which precipitously halted the
The international community, the
civilized world, has expressed its dismay that the
Amnesty International USA is
collecting signatures to petition the State Board of Pardons and Paroles and
Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue on
The Glass-Steagall Act of 1933
Following the October 1929 stock
market crash and the ensuing Great Depression, Congress held a number of
investigative hearings. Congress only partially attributed the banking system's
collapse in 1933 to the stock market crash. It also blamed the mixing of
"commercial" and "investment" banking industries that
occurred in the 1920s. The congressional hearings uncovered "conflicts of
interest and fraud in some banking institutions' securities activities."
The resulting legislation, which became known as the Glass Steagall Act of
1933, is actually two bills. Both measures were sponsored by Democratic Senator
Carter Glass of
For nearly fifty (50) years, the wall erected by Glass-Steagall worked. With
the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 came a concerted push for deregulation.
Congress passed the first measure that whittled away at Glass-Steagall with the
Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act of 1980; it
repealed Regulation Q. In 1982, Congress passed the Garn-St. Germain Depository
Institutions Act, which deregulated the Savings and Loan industry. Then, on
November 12, 1999, the provisions of the Glass-Steagall Act prohibiting a bank
holding company from owning other financial companies were repealed by the
Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which passed in Congress with a 343-86 vote in the
House of Representatives, before being sent to conference committee; the final
bipartisan bill, which was introduced in the Senate by Phil Gramm (R-TX) and in
the House of Representatives by James Leach (R-IA), passed the Senate by a vote
of 90-8-1, the House by a vote of 362-57-15, and was signed by President Bill
Clinton.
The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act allows commercial lenders, such as Citigroup, to
underwrite and trade instruments, such as mortgage-backed securities and
collateralized debt obligations, and to establish so-called structured
investment vehicles or SIVs that purchase these securities. Citigroup played a
major role in the eventual repeal of Glass-Steagall. The year before enactment
of Gramm-Leach Citigroup, formerly known as Citicorp, merged with Travelers
Insurance Company using loopholes in Glass-Steagall that allowed for temporary
exemptions.
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, “the finance, insurance
and real estate industries are regularly the largest campaign contributors and
biggest spenders on lobbying of all business sectors [in 1999]. They laid out
more than $200 million for lobbying in 1998." And with enactment of
Gramm-Leach, they essentially got what their contributions purchased, i.e.,
banking deregulation. (Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org,
http://investopedia.com and www.cftech.com)
Behind the Money Crash
By Mumia Abu-Jamal
For millions of people, the economic crash and crisis seem
almost mystical. What happened? Why did it happen? How did it happen?
It seems more complex than it
really is. That's because the corporate media are, more often than not, a
contributor to confusion, rather than a source of clarity. The media thrive on
conflict, chaos and controversy.
That's why I found in the
{British} left press what I've never seen in the corporate media: the text of a
2002 open letter from
Buffett explained that
derivatives are financial agreements for the exchange of money at some future
date, which can be 20 years or more. What makes them dangerous is they're
collateralized, or guaranteed, based on often faulty reference points. For
example, derivatives may be traded saying in 10 years, GM stocks will double
its 2004 value, and if it does in 2014, the instrument buyer will receive say,
$10 million. In many cases, before the contract is ripe, not a penny has
changed hands, yet some companies assigned these instruments a value, recorded
them on their books as assets, when in fact, they had no real value.
Remember Enron? On paper, they
were rolling in dough. In fact, however, they were rolling in paper -- for, at
any time, if they hit a snag, they had no real cash to cover corporate debts --
it was on the books, but not in the banks.
Again, Buffett explained six years ago why these instruments should be avoided,
writing to his shareholders: "The derivatives genie is now well out of the
bottle, and these instruments will almost certainly multiply in variety and
number until some event makes their
toxicity clean.
Knowledge of how dangerous they are has already permeated the electricity and
gas businesses, in which the eruption of major troubles caused the use of
derivatives to diminish dramatically. Elsewhere, however, the derivatives
business continues to expand unchecked. Central banks and governments have so
far found no effective way to control, or even monitor, the risks posed by
these contracts.*
In closing, Buffett warned, "derivatives are financial weapons of mass
destruction, carrying dangers that......are potentially lethal."
About
Me: Mumia Abu-Jamal (born Wesley Cook on April 24, 1954) is a talented
journalist, who was arrested and convicted of the 1981 murder of police office
Daniel Faulkner. His conviction and death sentence brought international
attention to capital punishment. Now serving a life sentence, he continues to
write on a wide variety of subjects. Please direct feedback to icffmaj@aol.com or via snail mail at Mumia
Abu-Jamal; AM 8335; SCI-Greene;
Global Green
By John Burl Smith
While addressing the Global Forum
for Survival of Humanity in January 1989, President Mikhail Gorbachev
introduced the idea of creating an organization modeled after the International
Red Cross to deal with ecological issues and expedite solutions to
environmental problems that transcend national boundaries. Three years later
delegates at the Earth Summit in
GCI was formally launched in
Primarily focusing on stemming
global climate change in the
Addressing some of the greatest
challenges facing humanity, GGUSA has developed some new and creative
approaches to solving the world's most pressing environmental challenges.
Global Green merges innovative research and cutting-edge community based
projects with targeted advocacy that educates hundreds of millions of people
annually. It leverages billions of dollars for environmental initiatives,
implements ground-breaking environmental policies and has improved tens of
thousands of lives in low-income communities.
Through its multimedia outreach
activities, which involve many high profile individuals, Global Green gets the
word out in a major way. The 11th Hour
is a DVD that explores how we got here -- human's impact on the earth's
ecosystems-- and what can be done to change course. Luminaries and experts from
around the world, such as former Soviet Prime Minister Mikhail Gorbachev,
scientist Stephen Hawking, sustainable design experts William McDonough and
Bruce Mau, along with other leading scientists, thinkers and leaders, dialogue
in the film about the most important issues that face our planet and people.
Global Green's staffers drew on over a decade of experience, technical
assistance and policy development to produce the Blueprint for Greening Affordable Housing, which offers
housing developers, designers, advocates, public agencies, and the financial
community specific guidance on green practices and innovative strategies for
incorporating green building strategies into the design, construction, and operation
of affordable housing developments. The book presents 12 case studies of model
developments, including rental, home ownership, special needs, senior,
self-help, and co-housing from around the
Recently published as part of Global Green's Greening the Tax Credits Campaign,
Green Building Developer Fact Sheets
is an effort to encourage various states around the country to adopt
sustainable building practices as part of the state-administered federal
low-income housing tax credit program. It highlights various sustainable
building practices and provides information about local product availability
and cost.
To meet the challenges of the growing environmental crisis, GGUSA plans to
continue its communications initiatives, which reached over 100 million people
last year with information about smart solutions to climate change. Learn more
about their efforts through their 2007 Annual Report at www.globalgreen.org.
It's Not Rocket Science; It's Economics
By John Burl Smith
Stimulus packages are all the rave when it comes to saving greedy rich fat cats
that created current economic problems. "Deficits be dammed, we must save
the economy! If $700 billion is not enough, we throw a trillion dollars at it.
If that's not enough, we'll throw 2 trillion; whatever it takes." Great
minds and Wall Street gods are at work, but like global climate change, no one
claims to know what it is going to take to solve the problem. This reporter
believes it is all just a sham to cover up looting the national treasury with a
"bait and switch" con by those who always benefit from government
moving too quickly.
Getting the economy moving isn't rocket science; it's simple economics. True capitalists
know that the more people with money who are going to spend it create the most
economic activity. Therefore, putting $700 billion in people's hands through a
job and public works program would create far more economic activity than
putting it into banks. That is what happened to George W. Bush's tax cuts given
to the rich.
Before the words slip past my lips, I know everyone has decided already it will
not work -- that it's too simple. But, consider these basic points of economic
activity. First, every person who goes to work under a jobs program will pay
taxes on the money they receive, so the government will immediately get a
return on its money. People in such programs spend every dime they earn. Their
money will not end up in banks or in some greedy fat cat's pocket. It will
circulate and get taxed again benefiting state and local governments.
Next, there is a crying need to repair the nations crumbling infrastructure -
water treatment facilities, bridges, dams, reservoirs, schools and cities need
cleaning up just as a start - along with restoration and all kinds of
recycling. Money spent in this fashion will go into immediate circulation
buying locally supplied materials and paying wages. This means even more
federal, state and local taxes.
Finally,
Green jobs offer future employment that will sustain the economy when jobs
programs are phased out. Revitalizing cities has been put on the back burner,
if not taken off the stove altogether. Creating green jobs is not rocket
science. It is not simply throwing money at the problem as the federal
government is doing with the Wall Street bail out. Intelligent economic
planning could move $200 billion dollars that went to the Wall Street bail out
into a super fund to support emerging green industries as part of a jobs and
redevelopment program.
The beauty of such a plan is that the government will never have to borrow the
entire $700 billion because the tax revenue and job creation benefits will
provide immediate returns in the form of tax revenues, which will help pay the
cost of programs, unlike the bank bail out. That will never work, you say
because it is too simple. For something to work it has to be complicated. Look
at all the money the government put into NASA. Going to the moon and Mars is
much better than helping ordinary people, isn't it?
Conversely, I reiterate, what we are talking about is economics, not rocket
science. Most Americans do not understand that the bail out was a game run on
taxpayers to help the rich, like the Bush tax cuts. John McCain is out on the
campaign trail saying, "Taking taxpayers money and spreading it around as jobs
programs is taking your money and giving it to those who don't pay taxes."
The money the government took from you and gave away to the greedy bankers on
Wall Street was your money. It is all your money. The question is do you want
to spend it to create jobs that will help people like you, which McCain calls
welfare, socialism and a tax giveaway or give it to greedy fat cats on Wall
Street who created the problem, as McCain proposes? The federal government will
never put that kind of money into jobs or health care programs which benefit
people like you; that is welfare.
Disgruntled says: Armed with its mainstream
media, like terrorists with box cutters, and the best government money can
purchase, the Wall Street al-Qaida is blaming its Main Street victims for the
financial crisis gripping the global economy. Rather than biting the bullet and
assuming personal responsibility for the rampant greed and ingenuity that
created all those exotic instruments to hide corporate debt and rip off hapless
consumers, charging exorbitant interest rates and fees and reaping record
profits, these big business barons are pointing fingers at the now homeless
and/or nearly homeless for falling for Wall Street's ponzi scheme to wring
every cent from every corner of every hemisphere. Under their plan of planetary
pillage, even folks earning minimum wages were encouraged to dream of owning
McMansions. Now that the chickens have come home to roost, the credit crisis
terrorists, a.k.a. the al-Qaida that brought down US market capitalism, are
deploying their impressive array of weapons of mass distraction to blame
gullible, but patriotic, first-time home buyers and homeowners cashing out
equity to remodel, buy consumer goods and frequent the malls of America as
instructed by the Bush administration and Alan Greenspan, former chairman of
the Federal Reserve. And, thanks to their lap dogs in Congress and the
mainstream media, they just may get away with the subterfuge.
Disgruntled
feels: Stagflation! So, is this finally a recession, even though the
National Bureau of Economists, the group charged with declaring them, has not
spoken? For years, some folks on
Disgruntled
wants to know: In the state of
Mailbox: E-Mails, Faxes and
Phone Calls
Email Iraq_Today@yahoogroups.com
...Additional Thoughts on the Bailout...By Paul Craig Roberts...October 16,
2008 - Clearing House. Just as the Bush regime's wars have been used to pour
billions of dollars into the pockets of its military-security donor base, the
Paulson bailout looks like a Bush regime scheme to incur $700 billion in new
public debt in order to transfer the money into the coffers of its financial
donor base. The
Email jim6263@cwnet.com ...Quote of the
Week: "Some people think that the Federal Reserve Banks are United States
Government institutions. They are private monopolies which prey upon the people
of these
Email www.nytimes.com
...F.B.I. Struggles to Handle Wave of Financial Fraud Cases...By Eric
Lichtblau, David Johnston and Ron Nixon...WASHINGTON -- The Federal Bureau of
Investigation is struggling to find enough agents and resources to investigate
criminal wrongdoing tied to the country's economic crisis, according to current
and former bureau officials. The bureau slashed its criminal investigative work
force to expand its national security role after the Sept. 11 attacks, shifting
more than 1,800 agents, or nearly one-third of all agents in criminal programs,
to terrorism and intelligence duties. Current and former officials say the
cutbacks have left the bureau seriously exposed in investigating areas like
white-collar crime, which has taken on urgent importance in recent weeks
because of the nation's economic woes. The pressure on the F.B.I. has recently
increased with the disclosure of criminal investigations into some of the
largest players in the financial collapse, including Fannie Mae and Freddie
Mac. The F.B.I. is planning to double the number of agents working financial
crimes by reassigning several hundred agents amid a mood of national alarm. But
some people inside and out of the Justice Department wonder where the agents
will come from and whether they will be enough.
Email http://preview.tinyurl.com/6rtm9o
...The Collapse Of A 300 Year Ponzi Scheme: The Real Debate Is
Crony...Socialism Or Financial Sovereignty...By Dr. Ellen Hodgson
Brown..."Admit it, mes amis, the rugged individualism and cutthroat
capitalism that made America the land of unlimited opportunity has been
shrink-wrapped by half a dozen short sellers in Greenwich, Conn., and FedExed
to Washington, D.C., to be spoon-fed back to life by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke
and Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson. We're now no different from any of those
Western European semi-socialist welfare states that we love to deride."
-Bill Saporito, "How We Became the