Peak Oil is You
Donate Bitcoins ;-) or Paypal :-)
Page added on November 25, 2015
Home, Sweet Kleptocracy
A top government official with energy industry holdings huddles in secret with oil company executives to work out the details of a potentially lucrative “national energy policy.” Later, that same official steers billions of government dollars to his former oil-field services company. Well-paid elected representatives act with impunity, routinely trading government contracts and other favors for millions of dollars. Meanwhile, ordinary citizens live in fear of venal police forces that suck them dry by charging fees for services, throwing them in jail when they can’t pay arbitrary fines or selling their court “debts” to private companies. Sometimes the police just take people’s life savings leaving them with no recourse whatsoever. Sometimes they steal and deal drugs on the side. Meanwhile, the country’s infrastructure crumbles. Bridges collapse, or take a quarter-century to fix after a natural disaster, or (despite millions spent) turn out not to be fixed at all. Many citizens regard their government at all levels with a weary combination of cynicism and contempt. Fundamentalist groups respond by calling for a return to religious values and the imposition of religious law.
What country is this? Could it be Nigeria or some other kleptocratic developing state? Or post-invasion Afghanistan where Ahmed Wali Karzai, CIA asset and brother of the U.S.-installed president Hamid Karzai, made many millions on the opium trade (which the U.S. was ostensibly trying to suppress), while his brother Mahmoud raked in millions more from the fraud-ridden Bank of Kabul? Or could it be Mexico, where the actions of both the government and drug cartels have created perhaps the world’s first narco-terrorist state?
In fact, everything in this list happened (and much of it is still happening) in the United States, the world leader — or so we like to think — in clean government. These days, however, according to the Corruption Perception Index of Transparency International (TI), our country comes in only 17th in the least-corrupt sweepstakes, trailing European and Scandinavian countries as well as Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. In fact, TI considers us on a par with Caribbean island nations like Barbados and the Bahamas. In the U.S., TI says, “from fraud and embezzlement charges to the failure to uphold ethical standards, there are multiple cases of corruption at the federal, state and local level.”
And here’s a reasonable bet: it’s not going to get better any time soon and it could get a lot worse. When it comes to the growth of American corruption, one of TI’s key concerns is the how the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision opened the pay-to-play floodgates of the political system, allowing Super PACs to pour billions of private and corporate money into it, sometimes in complete secrecy. Citizens United undammed the wealth of the super-rich and their enablers, allowing big donors like casino capitalist — a description that couldn’t be more literal — Sheldon Adelson to use their millions to influence government policy.
Kleptocracy USA?
Every now and then, a book changes the way you see the world. It’s like shaking a kaleidoscope and suddenly all the bits and pieces fall into a new pattern. Sarah Chayes’s Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security shook my kaleidoscope. Chayes traveled to Afghanistan in 2001 as a reporter for NPR. Moved by the land and people, she soon gave up reporting to devote herself to working with non-governmental organizations helping “Afghans rebuild their shattered but extraordinary country.”
In the process, she came to understand the central role government corruption plays in the collapse of nations and the rise of fundamentalist organizations like the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and the Islamic State. She also discovered just how unable (and often unwilling) American military and civilian officials were to put a stop to the thievery that characterized Afghanistan’s government at every level — from the skimming of billions in reconstruction funds at the top to the daily drumbeat of demands for bribes and “fees” from ordinary citizens seeking any kind of government service further down the chain of organized corruption. In general, writes Chayes, kleptocratic countries operate very much as pyramid schemes, with people at one level paying those at the next for the privilege of extracting money from those below.
Chayes suggests that “acute government corruption” may be a major factor “at the root” of the violent extremism now spreading across the Greater Middle East and Africa. When government robs ordinary people blind, in what she calls a “vertically integrated criminal enterprise,” the victims tend to look for justice elsewhere. When officials treat the law with criminal contempt, or when the law explicitly permits government extortion, they turn to what seem like uncorrupted systems of reprisal and redemption outside those laws. Increasingly, they look to God or God’s laws and, of course, to God’s self-proclaimed representatives. The result can be dangerously violent explosions of anger and retribution. Eruptions can take the form of the Puritan iconoclasm that rocked Catholic Europe in the sixteenth century or present-day attempts by the Taliban or the Islamic State to implement a harsh, even vindictive version of Islamic Sharia law, while attacking “unbelievers” in the territory they control.
Reading Thieves of State, it didn’t take long for my mind to wander from Kabul to Washington, from a place where American-funded corruption was an open secret to a place where few would think it applicable. Why was it, I began to wonder, that in our country “corruption” never came up in relation to bankers the government allowed to sell mortgages to people who couldn’t repay them, then slicing and dicing their debt into investment “securities” that brought on the worst recession since the 1930s? (Neil Barofsky, who took on the thankless role of inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Fund, tells the grim tale of how the government was “captured by the banks” in his 2012 book Bailout.)
Chayes made me wander ever deeper into the recent history of Washington’s wheeling and dealing, including, for instance, the story of the National Energy Policy Development Group, which Vice President Dick Cheney convened in the first weeks of George W. Bush’s presidency. Its charge was to develop a national energy policy for the country and its deliberations — attended by top executives of all the major oil companies (some of whom then denied before Congress that they had been present) — were held in complete secrecy. Cheney even refused to surrender the list of attendees when the Government Accountability Office sued him, a suit eventually dropped after Congress cut that agency’s budget. If the goal was to create a policy that would suit the oil companies, Cheney was the perfect man to chair the enterprise.
In 2001, having suggested himself as the only reasonable running mate for Bush, Cheney left his post as CEO at oilfield services corporation Halliburton. “Big changes are coming to Washington,” he told ABC News, “and I want to be a part of them.” And so he was, including launching a disastrous war on Iraq, foreseen and planned for in those energy policy meetings. Indeed, documents shaken loose in a Freedom of Information Act suit brought by Judicial Watch and the Sierra Club showed that in March 2001 — months before the 9/11 attacks — energy task force members were already salivating over taking possession of those Iraqi oil fields. Nor did Cheney forget his friends at Halliburton. Their spin-off company, KBR, would receive a better-than-1,000-to-1 return on their investment in the vice president (who’d gotten a $34 million severance package from them), reaping $39.5 billion in government contracts in Iraq. And yet when did anyone mention “corruption” in connection with any of this?
Chayes’s book made me think in a new way about the long-term effects of the revolving door between the Capitol — supposedly occupied by the people’s representatives — and the K Street suites of Washington’s myriad lobbyists. It also brought to mind all those former members of Congress, generals, and national security state officials who parachute directly out of government service and onto the boards of defense-oriented companies or into cushy consultancies catering to that same security state.
It also made me think in a new way about the ever-lower turnouts for our elections. There are good reasons why so many Americans — especially those living in poverty and in communities of color — don’t vote. It’s not that they don’t know their forebears died for that right. It’s not that they don’t object when their votes are suppressed. It’s that, like many other Americans, they clearly believe their government to be so corrupt that voting is pointless.
Are We in Ferguson — or Kabul?
What surprises me most, however, isn’t the corruption at the top, but the ways in which lives at the bottom are affected by it. Reading Thieves of State set me thinking about how regularly money in this country now flows from the bottom up that pyramid. If you head down, you no longer find yourself on Main Street, U.S.A., but in a place that seems uncomfortably like Kabul; in other words, a Ponzi-scheme world of the first order.
Consider, for instance, the Justice Department’s 2015 report on the police in Ferguson, Missouri, about whom we’ve learned so much since Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, was shot to death on August 9, 2014. As it happens, the dangers for Ferguson’s residents hardly ended with police misconduct. “Ferguson’s law enforcement practices are shaped by the city’s focus on revenue rather than by public safety needs,” Justice Department investigators found:
“This emphasis on revenue has compromised the institutional character of Ferguson’s police department, contributing to a pattern of unconstitutional policing, and has also shaped its municipal court, leading to procedures that raise due process concerns and inflict unnecessary harm on members of the Ferguson community.”
The report then recounted in excruciating detail the extent to which the police were a plague on the city’s largely black population. Ferguson was — make no mistake about it — distinctly Kabul, U.S.A. The police, for instance, regularly accosted residents for what might be termed “sitting in a car while Black,” and then charged them with bogus “crimes” like failing to wear a seat belt in a parked car or “making a false declaration” that, say, one’s name was “Mike,” not “Michael.” While these arrests didn’t make money directly for the police force, officers interested in promotion were told to keep in mind that their tally of “self-initiated activities” (tickets and traffic stops) would have a significant effect on their future success on the force. Meanwhile, those charged often lost their jobs and livelihoods amid a welter of court appearances.
Ferguson’s municipal court played its own grim role in this ugly scheme. As Justice Department investigators discovered, it did not “act as a neutral arbiter of the law or a check on unlawful police conduct.” Instead, it used its judicial authority “as the means to compel the payment of fines and fees that advance[d] the city’s financial interests.”
By issuing repeated arrest warrants when people missed court appearances or were unable to pay fines, it managed to regularly pile one fine on top of another and then often refused to accept partial payments for the sums owed. Under Missouri state law, moving traffic violations, for instance, automatically required the temporary suspension of a driver’s license. Ferguson residents couldn’t get their licenses back until — you guessed it — they paid their fines in full, often for charges that were manufactured in the first place.
As if in Kabul, people then had to weigh the risk of driving license-less (and getting arrested) against losing their jobs or — without a car — not making it to court. With no community service option available, many found themselves spending time in jail. From the police to the courts to city hall, what had been organized was, in short, an everyday money-raising racket of the first order.
And all of this was linked to the police department, which actually ran the municipal court. As the Justice Department report put it, that court “operates as part of the police department… is supervised by the Ferguson chief of police, is considered part of the police department for city organizational purposes, and is physically located within the police station. Court staff report directly to the chief of police.” He, in turn, ran the show, doing everything from collecting fines to determining bail amounts.
The Harvard Law Review reported that, in 2013, Ferguson had a population of 22,000. That same year, “its municipal court issued 32,975 arrest warrants for nonviolent offenses,” or almost one-and-a-half arrests per inhabitant. The report continued:
“In Ferguson, residents who fall behind on fines and don’t appear in court after a warrant is issued for their arrest (or arrive in court after the courtroom doors close, which often happens just five minutes after the session is set to start for the day) are charged an additional $120 to $130 fine, along with a $50 fee for a new arrest warrant and 56 cents for each mile that police drive to serve it. Once arrested, everyone who can’t pay their fines or post bail (which is usually set to equal the amount of their total debt) is imprisoned until the next court session (which happens three days a month). Anyone who is imprisoned is charged $30 to $60 a night by the jail.”
Whether in Kabul or Ferguson, this kind of daily oppression wears people down. It’s no surprise that long before the police shot Michael Brown, the citizens of Ferguson had little trust or respect for them.
Privatizing Official Corruption
But might Ferguson not have been an outlier, a unique Kabul-in-America case of a rogue city government bent on extracting every penny from its poorest residents? Consider, then, the town of Pagedale, Missouri, which came up with a hardly less kleptocratic way of squeezing money out of its citizens. Instead of focusing on driving and parking, Pagedale routinely hit homeowners with fines for “offenses” like failing to have blinds and “matching curtains” on their windows or having “unsightly lawns.” Pagedale is a small town, with 3,300 residents. In 2013, the city’s general revenues totaled $2 million, 17% percent from such fines and fees.
Might such kleptocratic local revenue-extraction systems, however, be limited to just one Midwestern state? Consider then the cozy relationship that Augusta, capital of Georgia, has with Sentinel Offender Services, LLC. That company makes electronic monitoring equipment used by state and local government agencies, ranging from the Los Angeles County Probation Department to the Massachusetts Office of the Commissioner of Probation. Its website touts the benefits to municipalities of what it calls “offender-funded programs” in which the person on probation pays the company directly for his or her own monitoring, saving the courts the cost of administering a probation system. In return, the company sets its own fees at whatever level it chooses. “By individually assessing each participant a fee based on income,” says Sentinel, “our sliding-fee scale approach has shifted the financial burden to the participant, allowing program growth and size to be a function of correctional need rather than budget availability.”
“Profiting from Probation,” a 2014 Human Rights Watch report, offers a typical tale of an Augusta resident named Michael Barrett. Arrested for shoplifting a can of beer, he entered a local court system that was focused on revenue extraction via a kind of official extortion, which is the definition of corruption. Even to step into a courtroom to deal with his “case,” he had to hand over an $80 fee for a court-appointed defense lawyer. Then, convicted, he would be sentenced to a $200 fine and probation. Because the charge was “alcohol-related,” the court required Barrett to wear an electronic bracelet that would monitor his alcohol consumption, even though his sentence placed no restrictions on his drinking. For that Sentinel bracelet, there was a $50 startup fee, a $39 monthly “service” charge, and a $12 “daily usage” fee. In total, he was forced to pay about $400 a month to monitor something he was legally allowed to do. Since Barrett couldn’t even pay the startup fee, he was promptly thrown in jail for a month until a friend lent him the money.
Such systems of privatized “justice” that bleed the poor are now spreading across the U.S., a country officially without debtor’s prisons. According to the Harvard Law Review article, some cities charge a “fee” to everyone they arrest, whether or not they’re ever convicted of an offense. In Washington, D.C., on the other hand, for “certain traffic and a number of lower level criminal offenses,” you can simply pay your arresting officer “to end a case on the spot,” avoiding lengthy and expensive court costs. Other jurisdictions charge people who are arrested for the costs of police investigations, prosecution, public defender services, a jury trial (“sometimes with different fees depending on how many jurors a defendant requests”), and incarceration.
Watch Your Ass(ets)
Even Machiavelli, who counseled princes seizing new territory to commit all their crimes at once because human beings have such short memories, warned that people will accept pretty much any kind of oppression unless “you prey on the possessions or the women of your subjects.” So many centuries later, while we women now tend to believe we belong to ourselves, civil asset forfeiture is still a part of American life. Unlike criminal asset forfeiture, which permits the government to seize a person’s assets after conviction of a crime, civil forfeiture allows local, state, or federal law enforcement to seize and keep someone’s money or other property even if he or she is never charged. If, say, you are suspected of involvement with drugs or terrorism, the police can seize all the money you have on you on the spot, even if they don’t arrest you — and you have to go to court to get it back.
Federal asset forfeiture collections have risen from around $800 million in 2002 to almost $4.5 billion in 2014, according to the Institute for Justice (IJ). Governments defend the practice as a means of preventing suspected criminals — especially high-level drug dealers — from using their money to commit more crimes. But all too often, it’s poor people whose money is “forfeited,” even when they’ve committed no crime. The Pennsylvania ACLU reported that police take around a million dollars from Philadelphians each year in 6,000 separate cases — and not from drug lords either. More than half the cases involve seizures of less than $192, and in a city that’s only 43% black, 71% of those seizures from people charged with no crimes come from African Americans. If your property is seized, you can try to go to court to get it back but, says the ACLU, you should expect to make an average of four court appearances. Most people just give up.
Reading Thieves of State reminded me that we’re not living in the country many of us imagine, but in something like an American klepto-state. Corruption, it turns out, doesn’t just devour the lives of people in far-off nations. Right now, it’s busy shoving what’s left of our own democracy down our throats.
Chayes documents how such corruption can lead to violent explosions in other countries. Indeed, it was a final kleptocratic insult — a police woman’s slap in the face after he refused to pay a bribe to retrieve his confiscated vegetable cart — that led Tunisian Mohamed Bouazizi to burn himself to death and touch off the Arab Spring. As Machiavelli wrote so long ago, people will put up with a lot — torture, mass surveillance, even a car full of clowns masquerading as candidates for president — but they don’t like being robbed by their own government. Sooner or later, they will rebel. Let’s hope, when that happens, that we don’t end up under the rule of our own American Taliban or some billionaire reality TV star.
52 Comments on "Home, Sweet Kleptocracy"
penury on Wed, 25th Nov 2015 9:27 am
Either you have a nation of laws ir no nation at all. The U.S. is showing that it is no longer a nation of laws except for the poor and disconnected. Anarchy is just around the corner and fast approaching.
paulo1 on Wed, 25th Nov 2015 9:38 am
If I were to send this article to my American sister, she would simply not believe it. My outsider opinion is that this situation seems so unbelieveable that it must be. My sister, who very much believes in what she calls the American Story, (as displayed in statue and myth form throughout this country….Wash monument, Abe Lincoln memorial, Ben Franklin in Philly and the old kite string tale), would simply discount this article. To her, and many if not most just like her trusting soul, such a reality is simply not possible because it goes against everything she was taught and grew up believeing in. Now, as her cynical Canadian brother I have say I value our relationship more than I need to make her aware of reality. She can always come and visit, and not return.
Hello on Wed, 25th Nov 2015 10:09 am
There’s no good system to avoid corruption. Unfortunately. It mostly relies on the ethics/self governance of people.
What can be done?
Davy on Wed, 25th Nov 2015 10:22 am
Does it matter anymore? NO. In my local far bellow these global trends this does not matter. These are global problems including in Canada. We carry on fine and things work as they always have down at th bottom. Petty reports of this and that corruption is not going to change things. Power is concentrating and with it corruption. The end is coming with or without this corruption. It is as simple as a descending energy gradient for an expanding population. Does it really matter in such a macro situation if the global rich are corrupting? Not really. It is more of the blame and complain game. Changes can be made but real changes will not be made until a real crisis. It is only then many of these issues will be swept away in urgency and emergency.
penury on Wed, 25th Nov 2015 11:19 am
Davy asks “Does it matter anymore?” And his answer is “No”, Time to wake up and smell the corruption Davy. I think it matters a lot. Everywhere I go I see people ignoring the minor laws that a few years ago they supported. Small things, traffic laws are flouted with impunity, anti-littering, ignore it. Stealing, its only a minor infraction, stealing cars so what. Drunk driving, everyone does that. And so we teavh the young that whatever you can get away with is legal for you. When the police are above the law and the rich are above the law and the politicians are exempt from the law, society is already trashed and it is all down hill from here.
Davy on Wed, 25th Nov 2015 12:03 pm
What is new with that Pen? You act like breaking the law is something new. I am talking about really matters. I am talking about more than what is just a fated system in decline and decay. What matters is what is coming and with what is coming not blame and complaining over spilled milk. This is a big process that will not be change except by crisis. Your whining over spilled milk will accomplish little except to make you feel better.
HARM on Wed, 25th Nov 2015 12:06 pm
@Davy,
Have to agree with penury here. It may well be that the rise of the corrupt crony capitalist state locally is an inevitable manifestation of macro post-peak decline (and/or late stage capitalism run amok), but I think it matters a great deal to the people suffering daily under the heel of their local kleptocrats. Once you allow local officials to start extorting/stealing from/incarcerating you for manufactured “crimes”, that’s a slippery slope directly leading to a Mafia state.
There may not be much ordinary citizens can do about the big picture of cheap energy/big debt pyramid collapse, but people can and should be fighting back against petty corruption on a local level. If/when the nation-state and national/global institutions collapse (including the banking/financial/industrial cartels), all that will be left stability-wise will be local government. That makes local government corruption *more*, not less, important than federal/state corruption.
Davy on Wed, 25th Nov 2015 12:31 pm
Harm, this is not a matter of agreeing and disagreeing. It is a matter of degree of importance and the realative size of the problem. We all disagree with corruption even those who are corrupt. The corrupt are complaining about those who are more corrupt.
The amount of corruption is increasing with the relative size of a peaking global world but nothing new nor greater realitve to the past. We have the Internet and the 24/7/365 TV that people get caught up in believing we are in a crisis of corruption when we are in fact in an existential crisis of survival. Our crisis is us and that is a carrying capacity breech. Worrying about corruption at this point is like worrying about a symptom instead of the disease. The other issue is irreversiblity and fate. This will play out as a crisis ending in collapse. Collapse needs to be what we are concerned about not corruption.
penury on Wed, 25th Nov 2015 1:03 pm
Davy this time I am going to call B.S. on your degrees of corruption. The people at the bottom of the pyramid really need to be able to feel that their leaders are not self-serving thieves, liars, murderers and worse in order to support the society. In this country today you have a definite split between people with money (you) and the people who have to live in a system which rewards the rich for being rich and protects them when they are caught. Thus the collapse that you are looking for will be preceeded by the corruption which we see today. Read history you might find a correlation.Collapse is the last stage of corruption.
HARM on Wed, 25th Nov 2015 1:07 pm
Davy,
Cannot disagree with you about the big picture, except to say that there is very little to nothing any of us can do about catabolic collapse due to massive global population/resource overshoot. It’s already happening and it’s far too late for politicians or other “leaders” to “do something” even *if* they were willing to acknowledge and attack the problem head on (and they’re obviously not).
So… the way I see it, the macro situation basically leaves us with two options:
(a) focus on what we can do on a local/personal level to prepare and fight off the most pernicious immediate/local consequences of collapse for as long as possible, or,
(b) curl up in a fetal position and surrender to fate.
Davy on Wed, 25th Nov 2015 1:20 pm
Yea ha, I was wondering how long until the poor, pissed off but proud pen played the money card. Are you going to falsely accuse me again like the other day when you got 1 out of 4 accusations right?
Pennsyguy on Wed, 25th Nov 2015 1:54 pm
I see moral and intellectual bankruptcy in the U.S. that not even the football season can mask. If that is the case, it doesn’t matter if we find trillions of barrels of oil in Iowa or perfect fusion reactors next Monday–the end is in sight.
GregT on Wed, 25th Nov 2015 2:35 pm
“I see moral and intellectual bankruptcy in the U.S. that not even the football season can mask.”
Are you saying that football itself is not morally and intellectually bankrupt Pennsy? If you are, I would have to strongly disagree with you.
Anonymous on Wed, 25th Nov 2015 2:54 pm
The american empire’s ‘homeland’ is hopelessly corrupt, and not because I read about it in this article. US state gov’t’s are sinkholes of corruption and cronyism. Local gov’ts are bad-rot rolls downhill after all.The ‘Federal’ gov’t of the US puts gov’t make the likes of Mexico or India look like paragons of virtue and honesty by comparison.Like most things in the US, corruption is so widespread and prevelent, it has become normalized. A medicated, fearful, and poorly informed AND educated population, is simply not capable of recognizing the rot for what it is, even when its out in plain view. Or if they DO recognize it, they are either A) victims, or B) try to find some way to cash in on it for themselves. This is the ‘genius’ of the American way. It has learned how to sanitize corruption in such a way, that it is barely acknowledged as such anymore.
This helps explain in large measure, why the US, for no good reason, ranks so high in worthless rankings like TI. If there was a way to rigorously quantify corruption(there really isn’t), but if there was, the US would be somewhere near dead last(worst). At lof of these ‘ranking’ outfits are US controlled, or influenced to start with, and a lot of times, your(nations) position on those lists, has less to do with objective reality, but rather how much the US elites hate(or like) that particular nation at any given time.
Look at how US ‘culture’ actually operates, as opposed to how TV and Movies try to portray it. In the US, the education system turns out people who have zero interest in reforming systems, much less creating new ones, but rather, it churns out new generations to cash in on the status-quo. The media in turn, do their part by only (seldomly) reporting on corruption (at any level), and if they do, they always treat it as an isolated event. US media helps of course, regularly glamorizes criminal behavior, drug lords, Wall Street types,’rappas’ or street thuggery and so on. In such movies, the honest law-abiding cop or whatever, usually swoops in and(occasionally) serves up some justice to the ‘big bad’ right at the end. The reality, of course, when it comes to such things, is vastly different that hollyjew-wood would have Americans believe.
Of course, if you still hang on the idea that the US is the land of milk and honey(and honesty lol), you can try to blame the issue on some vague nebulous idea of how an ‘inter-connected complexity driven world’ is somehow to blame, in order to an side-step the obvious. Or try blaming it on ‘humans’ being generally corrupt, in order to make the idea of widespread US corruption more digestible. Neither bogus ‘complexity’ arguments, or appealing to generalized ‘all humans are corrupt scumbags so there’ arguments are remotely effective, but some people(seem) to like think they are.
apneaman on Wed, 25th Nov 2015 3:04 pm
Well said
Davy on Wed, 25th Nov 2015 3:24 pm
Anonymously, you are long on descriptive agenda speak and short on actual information. How much do you hate the U.S. a little , a lot, or excessive? Can you see yourself in the difference of degree? The difference is between making a point and stretching the truth. On this board we prefer to hear how it is not how others want us to hear it. IOW excessiveness is frowned upon. Your point has validity but your personal hate explications do not.
apneaman on Wed, 25th Nov 2015 3:38 pm
Anonymous, I don’t know who this “we” Davy is speaking of, but it ain’t me. I speak for no one but myself and no one speaks for me.
Pennsyguy on Wed, 25th Nov 2015 3:45 pm
Football? I think that most of our popular culture is morally & intellectually bankrupt. Please understand Greg T: I live in western Pennsylvania and therefore will not comment on worshipping the Pittsburgh Steelers.
penury on Wed, 25th Nov 2015 3:53 pm
Anonymous, you need to be careful or Davy will treat you to his ever popular ad hominum(sp) attacks. He apparently prefers them even to the actual information he speaks of.
apneaman on Wed, 25th Nov 2015 4:22 pm
FORMER DRONE OPERATORS SAY THEY WERE “HORRIFIED” BY CRUELTY OF ASSASSINATION PROGRAM
“The Obama administration’s assassination program has come under increasing scrutiny in recent months. This October, The Intercept published a cache of classified documents leaked by a government whistleblower that showed how the program killed people based on unreliable intelligence, that the vast majority of people killed in a multi-year Afghanistan campaign were not the intended targets, and that the military by default labeled non-targets killed in the campaign as enemies rather than civilians.”
https://theintercept.com/2015/11/19/former-drone-operators-say-they-were-horrified-by-cruelty-of-assassination-program/
Davy on Wed, 25th Nov 2015 4:27 pm
Pen, ooh, you are sounding a bit of a hypocrite. I seem to remember you accusing me of owning condo’s, going to an Ivy League school, and working on Wall Street. All those accusations are false. You said those things to discredit me because you hate people with money. Get your facts right before you intend to ad hominem someone. BTW it was you that attacked first now you a crying about it.
apneaman on Wed, 25th Nov 2015 6:40 pm
Lobbyists, in Strategy Session, Conclude That Refugee Crisis “Helps Us” Defeat Regulations
https://theintercept.com/2015/11/24/lobbyists-refugee-crisis/
makati1 on Wed, 25th Nov 2015 8:52 pm
Guys, the 1%ers will always be blind to the filth and corruption that they got rich off of and by participating in. They will always try to deflect the blame to another person or country. That is why Davy’s rants are ignored as more blind, flag waving, bullshit.
This article just points out the obvious to those of us who opened our eyes to the truth. You only have to be awakened to the events really happening in the world, and who is causing them, to see the proof of corruption, immorality, and greed that permeates the US 1%. The 1% now own all of the government in the US from the Feds to the state and local town clowns.
People like Davy refuse to see it, but someday it will come home to them and then it will be too late. When the government takes his farm or maybe imprisons him for any one of the many laws he breaks everyday, he will demand his ‘rights’ only to find that he has none. And yes, he breaks laws everyday as there are 600,000+ on the books in the US and no-one knows them all. Especially the serfs. We all break laws everyday if we are in the States and the US government is tracking us all and is gathering evidence to use against us when they decide to. And they will the first time we protest.
Some make fun of me for moving to a 3rd world country and it’s uncertainties. I have lived here for 7 1/2 years now and feel more free and safe than I do when I visit my native country, America. My mother celebrates her 90th next summer. I doubt that I will have reason to visit the US for very much longer. Besides my mom, there is no reason to go back. It is becoming an open sewer of hate, greed, immorality, fear, drugs, and poverty. The Philippines is heaven by comparison.
Davy on Wed, 25th Nov 2015 9:08 pm
Wow, mak, I guess I finally got under your skin good. What is this no more ignoring me. I consider this a win of sorts. It shows I was right and your message was a failure.
Truth Has A Liberal Bias on Wed, 25th Nov 2015 10:22 pm
‘Merika is such a fuckng shithole. People get the government they deserve.
Boat on Wed, 25th Nov 2015 11:43 pm
mak,
Of course you feel better by being out of the States. You apparently carried your papers around feeling paranoid because you had to have them.
Even though you don’t need papers to travel to travel in North America including the US. lol
Of course the cops can’t enforce all the laws. They mostly have a high school education and make barely survivable wages.
Why blame the 1%ers. They are just taking advantage of what regulations are on the books. Governments control regulation. People vote for the representatives. If you have a well oiled lobby and committed citizens you can make big changes. Ask king coal. Took decades but they are in trouble now.
GregT on Thu, 26th Nov 2015 12:00 am
You are without a doubt the biggest idiot on this board Boat. Not a fucking clue.
Truth Has A Liberal Bias on Thu, 26th Nov 2015 12:42 am
Hey Boat you want some Freedom Fries with that? Fucking retard.
makati1 on Thu, 26th Nov 2015 1:08 am
Boat, perhaps you missed my reply to that same comment earlier? I will repeat it again as you need to know…
“You must present a valid U.S. passport or passport card in order to enter Mexico. Although documents may not be routinely checked along the land border, Mexican authorities at immigration checkpoints approximately 25 kilometers from the U.S. border will often conduct vehicle and document inspections and require valid travel documents and an entry permit or Forma Migratoria Multiple (FMM). … ALL U.S. citizens traveling outside of the United States by land or sea (except closed-loop cruises) are required to present a Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI) compliant document, such as a passport or a passport card, to return to the United States.”
http://travel.state.gov/content/passports/en/country/mexico.html
“Entry into Canada: Canadian law requires that all persons entering Canada carry both proof of citizenship and proof of identity. A valid U.S. passport, passport card, or NEXUS card satisfies these requirements for U.S. citizens. … Entry into the United States: When traveling by air from Canada, U.S. citizens are required by U.S. law to present a U.S. passport book, except as noted in the few exceptions provided on the U.S. Customs and Border Protection website.
For entry into the United States via land and sea borders, U.S. citizens must present either a U.S. passport, passport card, NEXUS card, Enhanced Drivers License, or other Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI)-compliant document.”
http://travel.state.gov/content/passports/en/country/canada.html
As I said, you need ‘papers’ to travel outside the 50 and soon will need them to travel between states. Wait and see.
It appears that getting back in may be more of a problem … lol.
makati1 on Thu, 26th Nov 2015 1:12 am
Guys, just ignore the ignorant and brainwashed. I do most of the time. They are not worth it and obviously have mental problems we cannot cure here. Boat and his clones are typical.
So are the 1%ers that have too much to lose if I am correct, so they refuse to see it. Too bad. Life is too short to not enjoy every minute you can, while you can.
makati1 on Thu, 26th Nov 2015 1:19 am
Davy, you are a huge joke and a failure to see the real world. So I guess my putting it in front of you is not working. You will have to find out for yourself, the hard way. Too bad.
Too many years of the good life being privileged has destroyed your ability to see that the rest of the world is so much different, and in many ways better, than you seem to believe. Enjoy your private jet to the Bahamas this holiday season. It may be the last time.
GregT on Thu, 26th Nov 2015 1:23 am
“Of course the cops can’t enforce all the laws. They mostly have a high school education and make barely survivable wages.”
The minimum prerequisites for police officers include the following:
Be a United States citizen
Be at least 21 years of age
Have a high school diploma or equivalent education
Possess a valid driver’s license
Have no prior convictions
Many departments go beyond the basic prerequisites by requiring applicants to have completed some college coursework and a psychological profile. Also, prior to being hired and assigned to patrol, qualified individuals must complete a police training academy.
Police Academy
Common areas of education during police training academies include:
State ordinances and local laws
Working with the public
Constitutional law
Accident investigation
Incident reporting
Civil rights
Mental preparation for hostility
Criminal psychology
Using firearms
Responding to emergencies
Controlling traffic
CPR and first-aid
Self-defense techniques
Apprehension techniques
Risk assessment
Role playing
As of May 2014, police and sheriff’s patrol officers made a mean yearly salary of $59,560. The upper 90th percentile made on average $92,450 per year.
http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes333051.htm
theedrich on Thu, 26th Nov 2015 4:56 am
When the Roman Republic went down in a welter of anti-tyrant orations (see Cicero’s Philippics) and ferocious wars (first between Julius Caesar and Pompey, then between Octavian and Mark Antony), power shifted from a kleptocratic Senate of billionaires to a kleptocratic dictatorship. It just goes to show that, the more things change, the more they stay the same. The masses like to say that they want hope and change, but what they really want is panis et circenses (bread and circuses). And when the proles prefer to be duped, the elites oblige them. Jonathan Gruber, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor who contorted the “Affordable Care Act” into indecipherable complexity so that it had to be passed before anyone could find out what was in it, based his work on the assumption of the “stupidity of the American voter” (his words). Passing sausage-like laws on a Friday/Saturday midnight during a major holiday has always been a favorite technique of legislators. Most governments can simply not exist without corruption. Their subjects demand it through their unrealistic expectations. In America, which today operates on the basis of “dreams,” the Ponzi scheme has become the true nature of governance. (Hotflash Hillary’s abuse of her notoriety to enrich herself are only a tiny tip of the iceberg.) Hence the illegal wars to impose dreamy ideas on failed-state countries, hence the falsification of the financial system, hence the vulture-like predations of the federal and many state governments on those in their clutches.
The religious systems (Catholic, Protestant and Jewish) and “humanitarian” organizations are also siphoning off vast amounts of tax moneys to settle various alien groups in American communities that cannot support the new parasites. All under the name of “compassion,” of course. Never mind how much the members of Congress are being paid through subterranean means by foreign countries to accept these dregs. The list of corrupt entities and people seems infinite.
America, however, is too massive to have a revolution of any sort. And the elites are in control of the media, and so can prevent any upstart like Donald Trump from becoming president. Corruption, then, is likely to continue until the last drop of national blood has been drained and the entire system collapses.
Davy on Thu, 26th Nov 2015 5:45 am
Mak said “You must present a valid U.S. passport or passport card in order to enter Mexico.” Makster I just don’t see your big splash with the passport issue. Why should it be an issue to have passports at the borders of a sovereign country? You are so deep into your hatred and resentment routine that you dream up problems and tragedies that don’t exist.
Mak said “When the government takes his farm or maybe imprisons him for any one of the many laws he breaks every day, he will demand his ‘rights’ only to find that he has none. And yes, he breaks laws everyday as there are 600,000+ on the books in the US and no-one knows them all.” Again Makster where are you dreaming these things up? I have absolutely zero problems with any laws in the US. If you don’t look for trouble in the US you won’t find it. I am beginning to think the reason you left the US was you broke some laws. Probably have a tax evasion problem or who knows maybe some white collar crime. You appear to be that type.
apneaman on Thu, 26th Nov 2015 3:28 pm
Drone Pilots have Bank Accounts and Credit Cards Frozen by Feds for Exposing US Murder
For having the courage to come forward and expose the drone program for the indiscriminate murder that it is, 4 vets are under attack from the government they once served.
http://thefreethoughtproject.com/drone-pilots-bank-accounts-credit-cards-frozen-feds-exposing-murder/?utm_content=buffereb340&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
onlooker on Thu, 26th Nov 2015 5:19 pm
Corruption is endemic throughout the planet trying to pinpoint any group or country is as futile as it is foolish. Just a matter of degrees.
Chomsky: US drone campaign is world’s biggest terrorist action (EXCLUSIVE)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oedvLjaIwM
makati1 on Thu, 26th Nov 2015 8:25 pm
onlooker, the country that is doing most of the damage around the world, and preventing peace, is the US. To say that ALL countries are equally responsible is just another form of denial.
If you want degrees, then most are less then 1 while the US is 99.99 out of 100. Most countries have not the means to cause trouble outside their borders. Nor do they want to. It is only the US that thinks they must dominate the rest by any means possible.
And yes, the US cannot allow any bit of reality to seep into the minds of Americans, so it will punish those Americans who try to pull down the curtain. Stalin did the same, as did Hitler and all other tyrants of history. But you know that. It is only going to get worse there in the 50, not better, unfortunately for my family there.
I hope you are enjoying your holiday weekend with family and friends and the weather is not too cold.
onlooker on Fri, 27th Nov 2015 1:19 am
thank you Mak for the well wishes same to you.. I heard a bit of distressing news, criticizing Obama is now a criminal offense got to watch what I say cause I am still in US . Anyway yes your rights Mak, the oligarchs who control the US utilize its resources both physical and intellectual to subvert and dominate as much as possible so in that sense you are unfortunately completely right. By the way did you hear that famous John F. Kenney speech on the “ruthless and Monolithic conspiracy?
Davy on Fri, 27th Nov 2015 6:37 am
Makster, you are sounding particularly upset today. Did you have a foul thanksgiving?
apneaman on Fri, 27th Nov 2015 11:43 pm
Nothing personal – just business
Life around New Mexico’s gas wells: how fracking is turning the air foul
“Her fears were boosted last year when Nasa satellites identified a methane bubble over Aztec visible from space. The bubble suggests that during drilling and production the natural gas industry is not capturing all of the gas they unlock from deep in the ground and significant amounts of this methane and other chemicals are leaking into the sky. McNall believes that other more dangerous gasses are being released too.
Northern New Mexico’s San Juan county has been the centre of intense fossil fuel extraction for decades. Here, oil, gas and coal are all pulled out of the ground. Until now, many people blamed only the coal for the bad air. That was before people like McNall and three of her friends – who call themselves the “Four Grams” – got involved and started waking people up to the danger of the 20,000 wells in their community.
These four grandmothers have been fighting for over 20 years to bring attention to the dangerous air quality in northern New Mexico.
“This is the toxic tour of hell,” she says as she drives past old wells and pits of drilling waste sludge surrounded by signs with skulls and crossbones displayed prominently.
The tour started in 2005 when she identified the most polluted places created by the gas industry and McNall keeps showing anyone who will come and, in her words “get polluted”.
McNall’s fears that the emissions from the gas industry are potentially dangerous are backed up by scientists. Dr Detlev Helmig is a research professor at the University of Colorado in Boulder. His group works with the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), Nasa and other groups to monitor the emissions coming from the gas industry.”
http://www.rawstory.com/2015/11/life-around-new-mexicos-gas-wells-how-fracking-is-turning-the-air-foul/
GregT on Sat, 28th Nov 2015 12:33 am
” And the elites are in control of the media, and so can prevent any upstart like Donald Trump from becoming president.”
If the elites are in control of the media (which they are) why do you think that the Donald got any press to begin with? I’ll give you a clue. Just like McCain and Palin, these “candidates” are only covered to make the masses believe that they actually have a choice. They do not. Like O was installed as the last CEO of the corrupt multinational oligarchy, Hillary will be the next POTUS. Probably the last. She will destroy what is left of the USA.
theedrich on Sat, 28th Nov 2015 4:13 am
You’re right, GregT. Clitoris Clinton will be the final POTUS, and Trump is only her media-created foil, a diversion for the rabble to hate so they will choose Hotflash as the “only alternative.” Trump could conceivably put a dent in all of the corruption, and so must be stopped at all costs. Hence the propaganda from various sources essentially calling him “Hitler” or even worse than der Führer. (Notice that they never call him “Stalin” or “Mao,” the true heroes of the lefties.)
Meanwhile tear-jerking drivel about the plight of inflooding parasites, amidst the hype about “Black Friday” and “Cyber Monday” on our side of the border, plus sports, soap operas and the rest, can be counted on to sedate the cattle. It is truly stupefying to watch this process of mass suicide.
onlooker on Sat, 28th Nov 2015 4:44 am
“Meanwhile tear-jerking drivel about the plight of inflooding parasites, amidst the hype about “Black Friday” and “Cyber Monday” on our side of the border, plus sports, soap operas and the rest, can be counted on to sedate the cattle. It is truly stupefying to watch this process of mass suicide.” Wow, that is really some great verse and captures perfectly the tone of this charade we call modern life.
Davy on Sat, 28th Nov 2015 6:47 am
Concerning Thee and his “verse” – I think those of us here who think we are so smart and intellectual are deceiving ourselves that we know what is going on. I am just as much to blame and I accept my part in the hypocrisy, prejudices, and intellectual exceptionalism. We know just a little of what is going on. We know enough to make ourselves dangerous that is about it.
onlooker on Sat, 28th Nov 2015 6:58 am
I am under no illusion of knowing all this is going on. I too accept my part in this charade. Yet I am not ready to accept the majority of blame. By now we must surely know that the psychopaths who rule us have crafted and engineered this destructive process we call civilization. We are just fodder or tax payers as Greg alluded too. To be truthful I find this back and forth between Mak and Davy rather pointless. To blame countries is completely missing the point. This did not come about because of “countries” this came about because a few wished it to come about. Now not even they can control the flow of events.
onlooker on Sat, 28th Nov 2015 6:59 am
That is going on
Davy on Sat, 28th Nov 2015 7:35 am
You are correct Onlooker the back and forth is pointless. Yet, who is attacking who? Who is distorting what? The message is more than individual facts it is a broader message. If you are preaching winners and losers with an extreme agenda you are presenting a greater message that is false. I am not going to argue the individual points that are constantly brought up by the anti-Americans. They are too numerous and most individual facts correct. I am arguing the broader message that is excessive, extremist, and an agenda of hate. I am all for criticism of the US at all levels but not the constant cherry-picking and focused anti-American agenda ad nausea daily.
I find myself being apologetic and trying to balance this discussion by showing my criticisms without the excess. I try to include the other players that are also part of these issues. I constantly try to show American criticism so I fit in with the overwhelming anti-Americanism on this board. Yet, that is not enough. It is all or nothing with many of the anti-Americans on this site. If you don’t join their orgy of extremism you are a flag waiver and supporting the evil death star called DC. This is bullshit and I will fight it to the bitter end.
I have noticed these discussions go in cycles. I think it is like a party. The anti-Americans get all worked up like natives at a midnight dance. There is probably some drinking and typing going on. We then see the blow out where I get the usual anti-Americans come on to bash and belittle me. Then things calm down and we start discussions that are “more” balanced, fair, and objective. You can never know the truth but you can try to get closer to it. That is what I am doing and I am not going to apologize for that.
onlooker on Sat, 28th Nov 2015 8:00 am
I guess I am self-appointing myself as the peacemaker on this board. I see good points coming from all sides. I have complimented Mak for his postings but I do see a little too much focus on the US which Davy has firmly taken objection too. The way I see it ,as I described it is useless to pinpoint countries, after all the whole concept is rather vague and nebulous. What I see is a hegemonic group spanning different areas of politics, economy, banking, intelligence services and military being accessories and beneficiaries within a system that has run a muck in greed and power lust. Its central base is the US but it spans the entire planet and has conscripted vast resources to maintain it hegemonic control. They are so addicted to power and money that they literally seem to have no control over it and their is some competition among them ie. Russia, China and US. Again I refer to the great speech by President Kennedy of the “Monolithic and Ruthless Conspiracy” to get a sense of what and who they are.
Davy on Sat, 28th Nov 2015 8:24 am
On looker you best just avoid getting involved because the anti-Americans are just like Bush with “You are with us or against us”. They are all or nothing with their membership. Trying to be a peacemaker will just get you burnt. We need more people like you on this board but until we do I would lay low unless you don’t care about being accepted.
onlooker on Sat, 28th Nov 2015 8:52 am
will do Davy. Hope you had a nice Thanksgiving.