Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Iranian election, and the events of 56 years ago...

One banner which reappears time and again in the recent election protests: "Coup 1953, Coup 2009". Iranians (who like other middle easterners appear to have longer attention spans than we westerners) haven't forgotten how 56 years ago, their parliamentary democracy was violently overthrown in CIA led coup, Operation TP-AJAX, to be replaced by a vicious dictatorship, in order to further the profit margins of private US and European (oil) corporations. 

Obama even acknowledged this event in a recent speech in Cairo to the world's muslim community where he maintained that the US "isn't at war with the world's Islamic community" ...  honestly... (!!). But then he admonished Iran regarding "behaving themselves in the global community", as regards their alleged (but unproven) program to manufacture nuclear weapons. Such a flagrantly duplicitous statement doesn't go down well with Iranians, makes the US appear even more arrogant and is more of a diplomatic faux pas than helpful. The US (and Iranian) people would obviously prefer stable relations between the two countries, but as far as the US (and current Iranian powers-that-be) are concerned, that seems to be entirely a different matter.

Its probably more about flowing testosterone on both sides, and the paranoia of "losing face", or seen to be "weak".... not to mention the recurring problem of hardline religious conservatives such as Iranian president Ahmedinejad, and others who shall remain nameless

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Auditing the "Federal" Reserve....

HR 1207, introduced by Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) has now got 224 sponsors, with Rep. Kucinich (D) OH being the 218th, thus taking HR 1207 out of Committee to a full debate in Congress. All indications are that this Bill is going to have a rough time, especially in the Senate, and will probably get defeated, and Federal Reserve is marshaling all the lobbying power at their disposal to keep this bill from becoming law.

This bill is seeking accountability and transparency re. the "Federal" Reserve. Why would such a standard concept in an official institution be seen as such a threat? What kind of practices might be threatened (or even stopped) by the legal requirement of such accountability?

My speculation on this, is that because of the (private, non-Federal) nature of the "Federal" Reserve Bank, it will be ruled that Congress has no jurisdiction over the rules and laws governing how the "Fed" works, and the Bill will be quietly dropped for such technical reasons. Of course, the national media will ignore the issue and accuse those who level any criticism of the "Fed" as being wacko conspiracy theorists. Such is the current state of play in the corporate media arena.

Sunday, June 07, 2009

Piracy....

The Indian Ocean is massive and thus its impossible to know exactly what goes on the recent piracy off the East African coast. However, we believe mostly what we want to believe, prefer to believe, or are more comfortable believing, and what story gets the endless repetition in the national media. The clear winner in the story stakes, is that these Somalis are a bunch of opportunists without a cause. The probability that piracy emerged as a result of foreign corporate irresponsibility/criminality combined with the lack of formal policing/coastguards in the waters off the Somali coast, is heresy. 

The squashing of unorthodoxy has long been a national pastime, and its never been more popular as in the last few years.

Monday, June 01, 2009

The pot calling the kettle... part 24539

The paranoia about Iran and North Korea is absurd and overblown beyond all proportion. The wars in which both nations have been involved in modern history have been local affairs, against their neighbors; Iraq in the 1980s and South Korea in the 1950s respectively. In Iran's case, they were attacked by US ally Iraq. Neither Iran nor NK have a current intent, or a past track record of far-reaching imperialism accompanied by wanton violence, and neither have the means to even fantasize along those lines, let alone accomplish such. The temptation for NK to develop nuclear weapons, and the possibility that Iran might want to follow suit, is to lessen the chances of being attacked, end of story. The US (and allies) have a track record of initiating dozens of wars in recent decades.. this cannot be denied.. and it is difficult or impossible to rationalize "national security" as a reason for any of them. 

The likelihood of Iran attacking a European country, or the United States, is as far fetched as aliens landing on the W.H. lawn. The possibility of the US, or Israel, (or a US led coalition) attacking Iran is very real however, and the neocons have been itching for such a conflict since 1999. We're addicted to making war, but we are in denial about it.