GDAEman: Justice

Showing posts with label Justice. Show all posts

December 29, 2010

The Eroding Justice

Many western foreign ministers, including Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, are voicing concern about the equal application of justice in Russia after the conviction of oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky. They say it's retribution for Khodorkovsky's funding of opposition political candidates to Putin and his resistance to a Russian oil pipeline monopoly, both of which are true.

But, if I'm not mistaken, Khodorkovsky gained his position through organized crime, and he is not alone. Many years ago Putin cut a deal with powerful organized crime figures; they stay out of politics and the Kremlin looks the other way. Khodorkovsky reneged on the deal and now he's paying the price. Sounds like big boy street justice to me... he could have simply been shot or blown up.

That aside, the US has an eroded moral foundation for its criticism of Russian justice. The US was just caught obstructing German and Spanish justice systems by using extortion tactics to stop their investigations into illegal renditions and torture at Guantanamo... all of this thanks to leaked State Department cables.

But we didn't need the cables to know that the US beacon of justice is eroding. Guantanamo itself is right in our faces... so big and obvious it's easy to forget. The, the irony.... Bradley Manning, the army private presumed to have leaked the cables, is being held without charge in conditions designed to erode his senses. Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, is facing very uneven treatment by the western justice system, there is even talk of retroactively creating a law to go after Assange; we've recently seen laws that retroactively erase crimes (war crimes, privacy crimes by ATT and other telecom corporations) but creating a law to make a past act illegal... that rings new to me. Meanwhile very serious criminal behavior, by George Bush and his cohorts, can't be addressed because we have to look forward, not backwards. Never mind the Wall Street tycoons who walk free and the litany of other examples.

WARNING: Step back and look at the big picture. The world is loosing its moral compass; some would say "has lost." People are now rolling their eyes at the United States' criticism of Russia and US officials will bristle at this. But over time US officials could become used to such criticisms. Given a little more time on this path of our eroding justice system and they might admit they are in no position to make such criticisms. Gradually, with only a small number of people jumping up and down waiving their arms trying to warn others, we will become an undeniable police state; some would say "have become."

December 20, 2010

GDAE Podcast - Episode 39

December 18, 2010 Episode of GDAE Podcast

Episode 39

Conversation on Corporate Power

Corporate Power: Conversation on how excessive corporate power is creating dysfunctional elections, health care system, financial system, news media, and its affect on American democracy and its citizens..

Prosecute Bush: Obstruction of justice in Spain and Germany by US officials exposed by WikiLeaks. Emerging facts have a way of forcing democratically governed countries to choose between maintaining their status as democracies or admitting that they are authoritarian states. If they choose to maintain their status as democracies, they have to prosecute high officials for crimes.

Click to Download Episode 39.

Recent Series: Can the Populist Left & Right Unite to Challenge the Establishment and Regain Control of Our Republic?

The answer is "yes," as history has proven. Check out the 9-part GDAE Podcast series that explores how common people across the political spectrum can come to the aid of our democracy.

GDAE Podcast Episode 29

Motivation for reaching out to the conservatives, from a progressive perspective

GDAE Podcast Episode 30

The Power of Ordinary People

GDAE Podcast Episode 31

Left & Right Populists Working Together: to fix our flawed democracy
What is a "principled" conservative: Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone magazine has some thoughts
Audit the Fed: Bernie Sanders leads the Left & Right to push for Senate Unanimous vote on Amendment to "audit the Fed."

GDAE Podcast Episode 32

Left & Right Populists: The American Populist movement of the 1800s with Jim Hightower (Bill Moyer's Journal).
Left & Right United: The Tenth Amendment with Michael Boldin (Mother Jones Magazine).

GDAE Podcast Episode 33

Principled and Unprincipled Conservatives: Will Bunch, Author of "The Backlash: Right-Wing Radicals, High-Def Hucksters, and Paranoid Politics in the Age of Obama," on the Tea Party movement and the recent primary elections.
Principled and Unprincipled Liberals: Glenn Greenwald, former constitutional and civil rights litigator now writer and blogger.

GDAE Podcast Episode 34

Conversation with Vince Tola: Perspectives on the potential of principled people on the left and right to join forces and reassert the power of the people over our democratic institutions. Vince is a public school teacher and Maryland Green Party organizer.

GDAE Podcast Episode 35

Case-study from Electoral Politics: David Sirota on Tea-party-backed candidate for US Senate in Colorado, Ken Buck.
Shared Left/Right Populist Anger: CNN interview with David Sirota explains Bush & Obama failure on Financial Bailout.

GDAE Podcast Episode 36

Motivation for Reaching out to the Political Right on Issues of Common Concern: Preventing the Drift toward "Barbarism".
Right-Wing TV/Radio Incitement: The case of Byron Williams who attempted to murder eleven people in San Francisco after listening to Glenn Beck and others.
Walden Bello: A historical perspective on the Drift toward "Barbarism" and its relation to the Moviation to reach out to genuine conservatives.
2006 Conservative Essay: "Now Is the Time for a Left-Right Alliance: A rebel alliance already exists that could stop Bush administration attacks on the Constitution."

GDAE Podcast Episode 37

History: Demagogues take advantage of bad economic times for political gains including the use of government to enrich themselves.
Three economists see three futures: Pretty Bad, Very Bad and Absolutely Catastrophic.
Call for unity among principled conservatives and progressives: Unite to counter-act dangers of demagogues during the coming hard times.

Source:

GDAEman.Com

November 29, 2009

GDAE Podcast Episode 23

Climate Justice

Climate Change: November 30 Day of Action, Corporate villains, Act for Climate Justice dot ORG.
Wall Street's so-called "profits" and the Phony Accounting that created them.
Climate Change II: Naomi Klein: Framing the issue in terms of "reparations".
The Chasm between the Super Rich and the Rest of Us: Words of wisdom from Kuwait's Abdlatif Al-Hamad.
Prosecution of Bush: War Crimes Against Children from a Book by Professor Michael Haas and Article by Sherwood Ross.
Musical diversion: Sam Bush Fiddle Solo exploration from "Little Maggie" with Doc & Merle Watson.
Bloopers.

Play Episode 23 from this page:

June 2, 2009

US Corporations Have No National Loyalty

As GM goes, so goes the nation.

Some are saying that was conventional wisdom in the 1960s... or maybe it's still true. It is no longer the fringe liberals and right wing nationalists who are saying things like:

GM is the number two foreign automaker in China behind Volkswagen, and GM’s plans for the future are dependent on success in China and not in the good old USA!

The reality is that so-called "US Corporations" have little or no loyalty to the US, except to the degree they can use the power of the government to their advantage... United Fruit Corporation liked having US military power support dictatorships in Central America so they could exploit workers and the environment without the unpredictability of democratic elections and the sovereign laws that follow.

Corporations are chartered to make a profit, and those with share holders have a fiduciary responsibility to make a profit; corporations can be sued by their share holders for bring do-gooders at the expense of profit. Corporations, apart from the people that run them, are designed to be profit-sharks... so, National loyalty, like paying their fair share of the National tax burden, is fundamentally counter to their charter... unless they are forced to do otherwise.

In stating his support for the "Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act", Senator Carl Levin siad,

“tax havens are engaged in economic warfare against the United States, and honest, hardworking Americans”

Obama and Geithner support the legislation, which makes me a little suspicious that it has been given a seal of approval by the corporate establishment. I don't claim expertise on the bill, but its good the issue is getting attention.

The "Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act" is a refinement of a bill introduced during the last Congress. According to Tax Justice USA, "The bill has been strengthened with the addition of three new provisions that would: (1) treat foreign corporations managed and controlled in the United States as domestic corporations for income tax purposes; (2) close an offshore tax dividend loophole that enables non-U.S persons to dodge payment of U.S. taxes on U.S. stock dividends; and (3) expand the tax return reporting requirements for passive foreign investment corporations (PFICs) to include U.S. persons who don’t own a PFIC, but have formed, sent assets to, received assets from, or benefitted from a PFIC."

For more, check out Tax Justice USA's website. If you like the legislation, contact your representatives in Washington.

Contact the US Senate

Contact the House of Representatives

Sources:

Tax Justice USA's website.

July 21, 2008

Karadzic Arrested: Could Be Bush

Contemporary War Criminals:
Pinochet, Bashir, Bush, Fujimori, Karadzic

Bush is famous for saying, "You can run but you can't hide." Former Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic is experiencing this saying first hand.

The world is witnessing Karadzic being brought to Justice. It signals that even the highest official in the land cannot commit crimes with impunity. This helps maintain social stability; if the public loses confidence that justice will be enforced through official channels, they will be tempted to seek vigilante justice.

We've also seen justice brought to Sudanese president Omar Bashir through the International Criminal Court. Chilean President Agusto Pinochet also learned that "you can run but you can't hide" from justice. The same fate befell former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori.

These national leaders committed crimes, and despite some delay, have eventually faced justice. This signals the potential that George W. Bush could eventually face justice for waging an illegal war of aggression in Iraq.

Sources:

Associated Press, Top war crimes suspect arrested in Serbia, DUSAN STOJANOVIC, July 22, 2008.

June 19, 2008

Wall Street Dominos Start to Fall

The Associated Press reports that Bears Sterns hedge fund managers

Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin were accused of encouraging investors to stay in their hedge funds, heavily exposed to subprime mortgages, even as they knew the credit market was in serious trouble.

AP puts this in the context of wider action...

The arrests came as the Justice Department in Washington announced the indictments of more than 400 players in the real-estate industry since March in a crackdown on mortgage fraud. Sixty were arrested on Wednesday alone.

It's hard to say this is honest justice when we know that the system and culture is corrupt to the core. We saw similar actions of "justice" when Enron, Arthur Anderson and others were in the spot light... but there doesn't seem to be a deterrent effect.

It has been noted that "if it pays, it plays" in regard to illegal activity. In addition to jail time, we need to focus on getting the money back that has been stolen. If that means liquidating big player corporations, and paying off the workers who will have to find new jobs, then so be it.

The corporate elite has robbed us every decade via a system that allows it. When John Edwards becomes the next Attorney General, we need to pressure him to change the system. That will be a true test of Obama's mouthing of the word "change."

Sources:

Associated Press, 2 charged on Wall Street in mortgage meltdown, June 19, 2008.

March 1, 2008

Mid-East Surrender Negotiations

I hear that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is going to Israel for more so-called peace negotiations. Media reports express concerns that Hamas might play a "spoiler role." While I disagree with the sectarian (religioous) aspects of Hamas, and Israel for that matter, they have built social support structures, like health clinics, which have earned Hamas legitimacy where other corrupt "leaders" have failed.

While atrocities have been committed on both sides, it remains undisputed that Europeans came to the region following World War II and imposed themselves on a place now called "Israel and the occupied territories." The sixty-year imposition has, at its core, been an assault on the dignity of the indigenous people of the region. Sixty years of ebb and flow, but with a constant sea level rise that has increasingly drown the Palestinian lives, sometimes to the point of desperate violent reaction.

Imagine your wife, sister or daughter experiencing the indignity of giving birth in public, a fairly common occurrence due to the Israeli system of checkpoints. Imagine the death of the infant, which likely would not have occurred in a hospital setting. Imagine the number of checkpoints growing, not just at boarders but within your neighborhood, making a trip to the market a regular assault on your dignity. Imagine your grandfather being slapped in the face by a haughty 20 year old foreign soldier at a checkpoint, because your grandfather had scolded the soldier for laughing and making fun the fact that he could touch your female body during a "security" search.

Imagine the family property, held for generations, having a road or wall cut through it, settlements built on it or simply being taken away. Imagine one wall of your town home being bashed through by Israeli soldiers from one neighboring town home, and then your other wall being bashed through into the other neighboring home as part of a house-to-house search. Imagine an Israeli soldier bashes in your television for fun in the process. Imagine they take over your living room to watch a soccer game for a break, and make your entire family stay in a bedroom for the duration. Imagine uncountable, creative indignities of all stripes being imposed on you, your friends and family for sixty years. You are subhuman.

Imagine, a legitimate election brings people to power who have provided health care in your community where no one else has, who resist the indignities described above, whose leaders risk assassination in their legitiamate struggle. Then imagine a foreign power places an economic embargo on your country because they don't like the result of your democratic election. Imagine the foreign power begins to fund, arm and train the political party that lost the election. Imagine their power is so great that they control the media; your story is not heard and a distorted story is widely accepted by average people around the world. Imagine that the embargo results wide-spread power outages, ruining the little food you have in your fridge and the antibiotics in an unprepared medical clinic. Imagine this leads to the death of your lover who had an infection from a shrapnel wound caused by a helicopter rocket attack that killed your younger brother. Imagine the smell of human waste due to the intentional destruction of the sewer lines by the occupying foreign power. Imagine this also leads to the contamination of your water, which must now be boiled, a process that is increasingly difficult due to a lack of fuel associated with the years-long siege. Imagine the taste of the water. Imagine that the boiling process only kills the bacteria, but doesn't remove the toxins that are highly suspected of making people ill and causing the death of the weak or old. Imagine having to give that water to your child because your choice to do otherwise has been taken away by a foreign power.

Crushing indignities that justify resistance. A tightening squeeze that has become so brutal that brother fights brother out of frustration over resistance strategies, none of which have a chance of working in the face of global superpower dominance. Imagine you know your suffering is due, in large part, to the super power's "national security" objective of controlling oil that happens to be located in the middle east.

Imagine your grandmother telling stories of a time when Jews and non-Jews lived side by side in what is now a crippled society, never to fully recover. Imagine that "hope" means capitulation to a 60-year series of indignities, a geographically discontinuous "state" in shambles led by a puppet regime composed of those people who sold out to the occupying powers. The foreign powers will have secured the best land, will control the water, and will insist that their citizens be allowed to remain on land that was stolen by anyone's definition. Imagine the foreign powers will lift their heads high, puff out their chests, smile for the cameras in a hollow victory of securing peace.

It's not peace that's being negotiated between Israel and the Palestinians. It's surrender. We don't need peace negotiations. We need justice negotiations.

July 7, 2007

Tell Bush What You Think about Libby

My message to George Bush on his commutation of Lewis "28301-016" Libby's sentence:

Mr. Bush:

Your action in commuting the sentence of Lewis Libby is at best a clear conflict of interest. At worse, it is criminal obstruction of justice.

Add your voice:

Contact the White House

June 17, 2007

The Means are Important

It's too easy to get caught up in outcomes and forget that the means are important, even vital. It's OK to relish the process, even if painful or ugly. We're always in a multi-generational struggle. Take the long view. Remember MLK: "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."

Photo Credit: LINK

June 4, 2007

Why Capitalism Will Fail

Capitalism will fail for the same reason America rejected Britain; Capitalism consolidates wealth and power, and people want freedom from consolidated power and they want justice through meaningful democracy.

As Martin Luther King, Jr. is quoted,

the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

Elaboration:

Capitalism is not democratic, and in its pure free-market, profit-seeking form, it is technically amoral (if a moral CEO passes up a legal, but immoral profit, a slightly less moral CEO will remove that inefficiency from the market).

But you don't need economic theory to prove capitalism is undemocratic. Our own work place experiences are rife with examples. Decisions are generally made by the higher-ups, and frustration among middle managment and the the workers reflects this undemocratic structure. Everyone has their own stories to tell about this.

On a global scale, transnational corporations fly into a developing world town, cut a deal with a the elite, who typically control the government, extract the natural resources, and pocket the wealth while the mass population gains no benefit at best, or is injured or killed at worst. Same undemocratic phenomenon at a large scale.

After the American Revolution, the Federalist Paper #10 was very open about the fact that a small number of wealthy people held great power. Even if pluralistic democracy was desired, the wealthy elite wasn't going to give up their power immediately. The U.S. Constitution was written with this in mind, to protect the power of the "minority," but to also allow a slow evolution and transition in power to the populace. So the theory goes.

However, corporations came into prominence after the US Civil War. They consolidated power, influenced the centers of government, and have corrupted the evolutionary process described above. But, that's only temporary; King's quote still rules, assuming humans don't go extinct first.

There are more classic reasons given for the eventual demise of capitalism, such as two reason predicted by Marx and Engles [1]:

The first reason is that capitalism basically leads to overproduction. The aim of capitalism is to make everything cheaper and faster. This will eventually lead to overproduction, once the means of production how become efficient enough. The markets will fail, the prices fall.

We see this playing out with the great China production phenomenon. We see capital seeking labor markets, raw materials and sales markets around the world, and creating blowback in the process. This reason leads into the second reason:

The management class will not be able to maintain living standards for the working class. The working class won't stand for it, and the system will change.

Efficient production itself leads to layoffs. US corporations moving jobs to China mean these layoffs are permanent. True, we could produce other "things" in addition to the things that are produced so much more efficiently, like environment-saving services and technologies, but these remain outside of the market, and there is good reason to keep environmental protection outside the market: consolidated wealth can afford to pollute or destroy the environment; only a collective, democratic decision can make environmental protection sacred.

Another argues that DEBT is why capitalism will fail. Others argue that lack of morals is why capitalism will fail, but it could be argued that the lack of morals will simply let capitalism reach its natural conclusion, that is, the reasons given by Marx.

With its eventual demise in mind, one has to wonder about the alternatives to capitalism.... a topic for another time.

Sources:

1. Sourced on Marx.

why will capitalism fail?

May 31, 2007

Cindy Sheehan: Moving on and Up

Cindy gets it. Our so-called "democracy" is corrupted by the corporate military industrial congressional complex. Yes. Eisenho original farewell address included the word "congressional" before it was removed. His words are worth repeating, and have been added at the end of this entry.

Cindy gets it, as did some researchers who published in Foreign Affairs. Their conclusion? The United States does not practice democracy. It is an imperial force in the world, driven by commercial and material goals at the expense of human needs. The transition is so deep, encompassing the vast majority of the mass communications media, that only external forces can correct the situation.

I posted several comments on other web sites, over the Memorial Day weekend, in response to reading Cindy Sheehan's "resignation letter." The gist? It seems that Cindy is moving on from the peace movement to the justice movement. My commentary is that we CAN wait for peace, because justice is a priority.

If anyone wants an answer to, "what's next?" it is provided by the Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy (POCLAD). If you're serious about change, then you should read through the POCLAD research, which is laid out to some degree in a 10-part self-study program compiled by the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (it's a misnomer... they're all about Justice ;-) Their program is entitled "Challenge Corporate Power, Assert the People's Rights."

The three-part activist strategy is worth repeating (Dave Henson gets credit for this):

1) Devote some time to deep, multi-generational struggles, like freeing slaves, women's suffrage, and revoking corporate power.

2) Devote some time to fighting the immediate struggles, like humanitarian relief, saving historical artifacts from destruction, and key legislative battles.

3) Devote some time to developing alternative social structures (solutions to the problems), like alternative economic frameworks, alternative governance and electoral frameworks, and exploring means of positive cultural change.

Excerpt from Eisenhower's Farewell Address

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence – economic, political, even spiritual – is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

January 20, 2007

Preemptive Saturday Night Massacre at DOJ

The blogs and NY Times Krugman are buzzing about the on-going "purges" at the US Department of Justice. Keeping with Bush's tactic of preemptive strikes, it appears he is commiting a pre-emptive saturday night massacre. The buzz is that Bush is trying to remove honest prosecutors to limit their ability to investigate him.

This is just one more piece of evidence that the Bush administration is a Revolutionary Power, as defined by Henry Kissinger in his PhD thesis. A former director of the Brazilian Mint once told me, "It's easier to prevent a dictatorship than it is to remove a dictatorship." He said this early in Bush's administration, and he spoke from experience.

Contact the US Department of Justice and let them know what you think.

December 30, 2006

The Justice in Executing Saddam Hussein

Saddam Hussein was tried and hanged for his disproportionate actions against the town of Dujail. That alone was the official justification for his execution, without consideration of gassing Kurds, secret police, torture or other acts for which he could have been tried.

It has been argued that Fallujah is Bush's Dujail. But it can also be argued that the accumulated whole of the war crimes in Iraq is Bush's Dujail.

Prime Minister Olmert of Israel has his own Dujail. It's called the disproportionate assault and collective punishment of Lebanon in July 2006.

If Justice is blind and balanced, then we should, someday, witness Bush and Olmert being punished for their Dujails.

GDAEman