…since I harshed your mellow. Chris Floyd steps up to do the job:

Indeed, the entire arc of America’s bipartisan policies in [Central Asia] over the past 40 years can be seen as the elaborate construction of a gargantuan, self-propelled blowback machine, producing an endless effluent of violence, threat, chaos and crime that is now sluicing through the entire world. But blowback, as we all know, is not a design flaw of imperial policy, at least not for the most part; it is a design feature. No War Machine without perpetual war and rumors of war; no war profits – and no war powers – without the War Machine.

He’s talking about Barack Obama and UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown pledging an escalation of their countries’ military commitments to Afghanistan. Executive summary: more death and misery for the people there, more profit and power for a very select group of people here.

IRAQ WAR ENDS and other great headlines in today’s (fake) New York Times (courtesy of The Yes Men).

Good.is has a snappy video breaking down the $3 Trillion cost of war (as documented in Joseph E. Stiglitz and Linda J. Bilme’s exhaustively researched book, The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict)

After the hoopla of winning the election, and a lot of wonk-talk about the cabinet posts, I was so greatful to read this today:

WASHINGTON — President-elect Obama’s advisers are quietly crafting a proposal to ship dozens, if not hundreds, of imprisoned terrorism suspects to the United States to face criminal trials

I think that closing Gitmo as one of his firsts acts in office will send a strong message to the world, and americans at home, that morality is back on the table as an important american value.

NOTE: Pre-emptive anti-snark statement… I know the witch has many sisters and that Glinda herself has been known to cohort with lobbyists, but give a munchkin a chance to party a bit. ; )

Bush administration officials have shown a determination to operate under an expansive definition of self-defense that provides a legal rationale for strikes on militant targets in sovereign nations without those countries’ consent.

That’s from deep within an article that details how President Bush signed a secret order back in 2004 allowing the U. S. military to engage in hostile operations in countries that we’re not at war with.

Um… sweet!

The political battles to come – which will have an enormous impact on our lives and the lives of people around the world – will not be easy. Having a president in the White House who is demonstrably intelligent and reasonable could be a good thing.

But let’s not pretend that, because Barack Obama has been elected, our battles are won.

For instance: today, flush with the glow of yesterday’s victory, Obama announced that he’s chosen the execrable Rahm Emanuel to be his Chief of Staff. This is the same man who, as the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, fought tooth and nail to exclude, marginalize, and demonize anti-war Democrats in the 2006 primary races. He withdrew national Democratic support from a progressive Congressional candidate and recruited opponents to defeat her in the primary. Emanuel has, time and time again, shown himself to be firmly allied with the “centrist” (read: “Republican”) wing of the Democratic party, personified by the Democratic Leadership Council. (See this Truthout special for more on Emanuel’s role in recruiting conservatives in the 2006 campaign.)

Rahm Emanuel is the opposite of someone like Howard Dean. After Dean lost his bid to be the Democratic nominee in 2004, he undertook another, far more unusual campaign – he campaigned to be the chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). What’s unusual about this is that the DNC chair is usually chosen by party insiders in Washington, who present their choice to the state parties as a fait accompli. Dean fought for the votes of the state party leaders, and when it was clear he had enough support, the other candidates withdrew, and Dean won the chairmanship (much to the chagrin of Rahm Emanuel, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid, incidentally).

What Dean did next is stunning: he set out to devolve the DNC’s power to its state party organizations. He believed that the best decisions are made by people who are close to the issues that matter to voters. He also believed that Democrats need to compete in every county across the country. His emphasis on rebuilding (or, in some cases, building) viable state Democratic party organizations laid the groundwork for Obama’s successful use of Dean’s “fifty-state strategy” in this election.

Here’s what Rahm Emanuel said to Howard Dean about Dean’s strategy:

“You’re nowhere, Howard. Your field plan is not a field plan. That’s fucking bullshit … I know your field plan - it doesn’t exist. I’ve gone around the country with these races. I’ve seen your people. There is no plan, Howard.”

Howard Dean is smart, compassionate, and effective. I haven’t seen his name mentioned as a possible Cabinet appointee in the Obama administration, incidentally.

In Rahm Emanuel’s defense, he and Obama have been friends since their early days in Chicago together. And, since Emanuel served in the Clinton White House, he can be a bridge to the Clinton wing of the party. And, further, many times someone can sublimate his own opinions in the service of his boss. Nonetheless, the selection of this pro-war, anti-grassroots, former-Investment-Banker as Obama’s chief of staff is a clear signal that we’ll have to keep the pressure up throughout Obama’s term of office if we want to see real, progressive change.

Another crystal-clear signal of this sort are the reports that Obama will likely name Lawrence Summers to be Treasury Secretary. Larry Motherfucking Summers is the guy who signed a 1991 memo, when he was Chief Economist of the World Bank, asserting that “the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that.”

Larry Summers was Clinton’s Treasury Secretary from 1999 until the end of his term. He lobbied the Congress to repeal the Glass-Steagall Financial Services Act, which the Congress ultimately did – leading rather directly to the current financial disaster we’re witnessing. Here’s an excerpt from the 1999 New York Times article describing Clinton’s signing of the Gramm-Leach-Billey Act:

“With this bill,” Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers said, “the American financial system takes a major step forward toward the 21st Century — one that will benefit American consumers, business and the national economy.” Opponents said it would have the opposite effect, creating behemoths that will raise fees, violate customers’ privacy by sharing and selling their personal data, and put the stability of the financial system at risk.

This is the same Larry Summers who announced that efforts by faculty at MIT and Harvard to force their institutions to divest from Israel, due to Israel’s ongoing occupation and subjugation of Palestinian territory, were “Anti-semitic in effect, if not in intent.” The same Larry Summers who drove the African American scholar Cornel West out of Harvard by accusing him of being unserious and contributing to grade inflation. The same Larry Summers who, while President of Harvard, asserted that perhaps the lack of women in top science, engineering, and math jobs was due to their innate lack of ability in those fields.

Obama’s choices of advisers and Cabinet members says a lot about how he’ll govern. The early signs are not very hopeful, at least for those of us who aren’t DLC “centrists.”

Any progressive change that comes out of an Obama administration is going to happen because we organize and fight for it every step of the way. The effort to get real change enacted is going to need the same organization, the same energy, and the same stamina as the effort that put Obama in the White House. And this time, we’re going to have to do it without Obama’s national and local organizations, without the support of the Democratic party, and – crucially – without their hundreds of millions of dollars.

We’ve only just begun…

Guess which expenditure has the US media and the right wing screaming in protest?

[Google News: “Read all 1,095 news articles”]

On the Friday before the 2004 election, ex(?)-CIA asset Osama Bin Laden released a videotape in which he addressed the American people. Deputy CIA Director John McLaughlin said at the time, “Bin Laden certainly did a nice favor today for the President.”

Assuming that everyone in the “spooky” underworld is on schedule, that means tomorrow is the big day!

I can hardly wait… (shudder)

“[Oil company] reports record profits…”

That headline ran today. It also ran in July, 2008. According to my search of the New York Times archives (oil AND record AND (profit OR profits)), it also ran in April, 2008. It also ran in February, 2008. It also ran in February, 2007. It also ran in July, 2006. It also ran in January, 2006. It also ran in October, 2005. It also ran in August, 2005. It also ran in February, 2005. It also ran in August, 2004. It also ran in July, 2004. It also ran in October, 2000. It also ran in July, 2000. It also ran in May, 1997. It also ran in January, 1997. It also ran in January, 1990. It also ran in October, 1988.

It’s funny. I guess if you control the supply of something vital to every sector of the economy, and there’s no limit on your pricing power (other than “the market”), then you can pretty much guarantee you’ll earn a shitload of money.

Here’s the relevant graf from 11 years ago:

Exxon, the largest oil company in the United States, said its profit jumped nearly 49 percent to a record $2.49 billion, or $2 a share, in the fourth quarter, compared with a profit of $1.68 billion, or $1.35 a share, in the similar quarter of 1995. Revenue climbed to $37.62 billion from $31.50 billion.

And here’s the word today:

Exxon Mobil Corp.’s third-quarter net income rose 58% to a new record of nearly $15 billion… Exxon Mobil said it earned $14.83 billion, or $2.86 a share, up from $9.41 billion, or $1.70 a share in the year-ago period.

Those are quarterly profits, not gross receipts. That’s a profit rate of almost $2,000 per second!

I also enjoyed finding this little nugget in an April 27, 1986 article in the New York Times:

President Reagan urged the repeal of the ”windfall profits” tax on domestic oil in an attempt to help out those companies hit by the price drop.

That tax was repealed on August 23, 1988, and has not been reinstated – although oil prices, which were around $38/barrel in 1980 and had fallen below $20/barrel in 1988, peaked above $140/barrel this summer.

Chris Hedges won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on terrorism for the New York Times. He’s the author of a number of books, including War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning (2002) and American Fascists (2007), the latter book a disturbing look inside right-wing evangelical Christian movements in the United States. He earned his Masters of Divinity at Harvard in 1975, and he served for several years as the Chief of the Middle East bureau of the New York Times.

In other words – yes, the man has a particular political perspective, but he knows his shit. And what he says in his most recent article for Truthdig is truly terrifying:

A victory by Barack Obama may embolden right-wing populists. They will be able to use Obama and “liberal Democrats” as a lightning rod for the failings, growing poverty and incompetence of the state. The elite – as happens in all such moments of confusion, revolt and social chaos – will probably be forced to make an uncomfortable alliance with right-wing populists if they want to survive. The center of the political spectrum will melt…

We have begun a socialist experiment. George W. Bush and John McCain, in stunning repudiations of all they claimed to believe, call for massive state intervention in the financial markets and the use of billions in government funds to buy major stakes in banks. The question is not whether we will build state socialism. This process has already begun. The only question left is whether this will be right-wing or left-wing socialism.

The left – with a few exceptions, like the Progressive Party in Vermont – has largely thrown in its lot with the Democratic Party. Right-wing populists, as is evidenced by the acrimonious split in the McCain campaign, remain clustered around the fiefdoms of large megachurches that stoke hatred and frightening totalitarian visions of a Christian state. The left has no correlating centers of activism, organization or mass support, especially with the decline of labor unions. If left-wing populists do not rapidly build local organizations, as was done in Vermont, to compete with the right-wing populism of the Christian right, the most dangerous mass movement in American history, they will be easily swept aside.

In other words… the Democratic Party is happy to use the efforts of thousands of dedicated volunteers to elect their candidate; don’t expect the Democrats to return the favor, when those thousands of people are demanding mortgage relief, welfare payments, and health care. The Democrats have demonstrated, time and time again, that they are firmly on the side of the corporate masters, and against the people.

I’m hopeful that, with so many people getting experience in organizing their fellow citizens during the Obama campaign, we’ll find it easier to work together to bring about greater economic and social justice. The big difference will be that, instead of working with the support of the Democratic party, we’ll be “out in the cold,” working against the entire corporate-political juggernaut. If you think it’s hard to fight the Republicans with the Democrats on your side, wait until they’ve ganged up on you!

Hopefully the Progressive Party in Vermont can teach us a few lessons…