I did not know much about this year’s winner of the Nobel Peace Prize except that I’d heard that he was a critic of the Chinese government and had been jailed by them for expressing his views, which made me instinctively supportive of him. But Tariq Ali points out that irrespective of Liu Xiaobo’s merits as an opponent of China’s authoritarian government, he is not actually much of a peace advocate.

For the record, Liu Xiaobo has stated publicly that in his view:

(a) China’s tragedy is that it wasn’t colonised for at least 300 years by a Western power or Japan. This would apparently have civilised it for ever;

(b) The Korean and Vietnam wars fought by the US were wars against totalitarianism and enhanced Washington’s ‘moral credibility’;

(c) Bush was right to go to war in Iraq and Senator Kerry’s criticisms were ‘slander-mongering’;

(d) Afghanistan? No surprises here: Full support for Nato’s war.

He has a right to these opinions, but should they get a peace prize?

Apparently, the Nobel committee at one time even “thought about giving Bush and Blair a joint peace prize for invading Iraq but a public outcry forced a retreat.”

Given that the Peace Prize was given last year to Barack Obama who has escalated the war in Afghanistan and is steadily raining down bombs on that country as well as Iraq, Yemen, and Pakistan and killing hundred of innocent people in the process, perhaps they should rename it the War Prize.

In an earlier post, I said that it seemed like the failed recent attempts to bring down airplanes using incompetent people with half-baked plans may not be signs of incompetence on the part of al Qaeda as popularly perceived but may be part of a strategy to take advantage of two things: the ridiculously high levels of manufactured fear of the US public combined with the huge money-making counter-terrorist industry that is exploiting this fear.

After all, if al Qaeda wanted to really kill people, all it would have to do is set off bombs in shopping malls, sporting events, movie theaters, megachurches, and the like. They seem to have little or no interest in such acts. But, you may object, what about the alleged terror plots against bridges and buildings in Times Square, Miami, Portland, Baltimore, etc. that have been recently foiled with great fanfare?

Paul Craig Roberts lists all such terror ‘plots’ that have been uncovered so far and notes that there is a common thread that runs through nearly all of them, apart from their ineptness, and that is that in each case the authorities were actively involved in instigating fairly dimwitted people to become part of the plot, by posing as al Qaeda operatives to entice them. So al Qaeda was not behind the plots, the FBI was.

One recent ‘plot’ that was uncovered was in California where a convicted criminal was recruited by the FBI to pretend to be a devout Muslim, attend a mosque, and talk about jihad incessantly. He so alarmed the other mosque attendees that they got a restraining order against him forbidding him to attend. But it was trumpeted as another terrorist plot uncovered!

Another ‘plot’ that was uncovered was in Baltimore, where the FBI targeted a young Muslim convert who had made some incendiary comments on Facebook to lure him into agreeing to a plot.

Joe Quinn also examines the role of the authorities in these plots, especially the highly publicized Miami one which seemed to involve a bizarre religious sect whose members seem to be at a minimum borderline deranged.

The only bombing plan uncovered so far that seemed to be spontaneous was the Times Square bomber.

So what is going on?

The sad fact is that here are many young people who are not very bright and are angry for all kinds of reasons. As Robert Pape points out, one major reason is that they are Muslims angered by what they see as indiscriminate killing by the US government of their co-religionists in other countries. But there are other reasons for anger that have no connection with Islam or al Qaeda, such as abortion, fears of gun control, opposition to government in general and taxes in particular.

Then there are those who are so poor and desperate that if you dangle some money in front of them they may be willing to do things they would not otherwise have considered. Combined with the stupidity and bravado that some young men tend to have, it would not take much for people with almost unlimited money and other resources (as the government has) to persuade such people to sign on to some half-baked plot and then later unmask it as another ‘success’ in the war on terror.

As Roberts says:

If you are not too bright and some tough looking guys accost you and tell you that they are Al Qaeda and expect your help in a terrorist operation, you might be afraid to say no, or you might be thrilled to be part of a blowback against an American population that is indifferent to their government’s slaughter of people of your ethnicity in your country of origin. Whichever way it falls, it is unlikely the ensnared person would ever have done anything beyond talk had the FBI not organized them into action. In other cases the FBI entices people with money to participate in its fake plots.

The real question is why the government is going to such lengths to do so. Roberts harbors dark suspicions:

When the US government has to go to such lengths to create “terrorists” out of hapless people, an undeclared agenda is being served. What could this agenda be?

The answer is many agendas. One agenda is to justify wars of aggression that are war crimes under the Nuremberg standard created by the US government itself. One way to avoid war crimes charges is to create acts of terrorism that justify the naked aggressions against “terrorist countries.”

Another agenda is to create a police state. A police state can control people who object to their impoverishment for the benefit of the superrich much more easily than can a democracy endowed with constitutional civil liberties.
…
The “war on terror” provides an opportunity for a few well-connected people to become very rich. If they leave Americans with a third world police state, they will be living it up in Gstaad.

He points out that Michael Chertoff, “former head of US Homeland Security, is the lobbyist who represents Rapiscan, the company that manufactures the full body porno-scanners that, following the “underwear bomber” event, are now filling up US airports. Homeland Security has announced that they are going to purchase the porno-scanners for trains, buses, subways, court houses, and sports events. How can shopping malls and roads escape? Recently on Interstate 20 west of Atlanta, trucks had to drive through a similar device. Everyone has forgotten that the underwear bomber lacked required documents and was escorted aboard the airliner by an official.”

So now we have the bizarre combination of al Qaeda, the government, and the private counter-terrorism industry all having different motives but working towards the same goal: to keep the nation in a state of perpetual fear.

She has an excellent article that is well-worth reading in full but I will give you a few paragraphs to whet your appetite.

The Espionage Act was crafted in 1917 — because President Woodrow Wilson wanted a war and, faced with the troublesome First Amendment, wished to criminalize speech critical of his war. In the run-up to World War One, there were many ordinary citizens — educators, journalists, publishers, civil rights leaders, union activists — who were speaking out against US involvement in the war. The Espionage Act was used to round these citizens by the thousands for the newly minted ‘crime’ of their exercising their First Amendment Rights.
…
I predicted in 2006 that the forces that wish to strip American citizens of their freedoms, so as to benefit from a profitable and endless state of war — forces that are still powerful in the Obama years, and even more powerful now that the Supreme Court decision striking down limits on corporate contributions to our leaders has taken effect — would pressure Congress and the White House to try to breathe new life yet again into the terrifying Espionage Act in order to silence dissent.
…
Let me explain clearly why activating — rather than abolishing — the Espionage Act is an act of profound aggression against the American people.
…
As I noted in The End of America, if you prosecute journalists — and Assange, let us remember, is the New York Times in the parallel case of the Pentagon Papers, not Daniel Ellsberg; he is the publisher, not the one who revealed the classified information — then any outlet, any citizen, who discusses or addresses ‘classified’ information can be arrested on ‘national security’ grounds. If Assange can be prosecuted under the Espionage Act, then so can the New York Times; and the producers of Parker Spitzer, who discussed the WikiLeaks material two nights ago; and the people who posted a mirror WikiLeaks site on my Facebook ‘fan’ page; and Fox News producers, who addressed the leak and summarized the content of the classified information; and every one of you who may have downloaded information about it; and so on. That is why prosecution via the Espionage Act is so dangerous — not for Assange alone, but for every one of us, regardless of our political views.

She calls on people to demand the repeal of the Espionage Act.

Pratap Chatterjee in The Guardian has an interesting article on how advocates of civil liberties and human rights quickly succumb to becoming advocates of the imperial presidency when they join the government. He gives as examples people like Harold Koh, dean of the Yale Law School, and John Yoo, professor of law at the University of California, Berkeley. Both had secure jobs in which tenure is given to empower people to challenge authority, tradition, and conventional wisdom without fear of repercussions. But as soon as they were given government positions, they became advocates for some of the most repressive policies against human rights.

If even tenured professors can be so easily subverted, this shows why we need structures outside of the establishment to maintain transparency and uphold true democratic values. Institutions like WikiLeaks challenge the power structure and we should support them.

<td style='padding:2px 1px 0px 5px;' colspan='2'International Manhunt for Julian Assange – Daniel Ellsberg

The Colbert Report	Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog</a> March to Keep Fear Alive

It never ceases to shock me that so-called ‘respectable’ media commentators can so casually and even gleefully publicly call for the murder of people. Have we reached such a level of barbarity that such talk does not arouse widespread condemnation? Have we, at last, no shame?

When Obama announced his deal with the Republicans, I said that I was suspicious of his decision to reduce the payroll tax from 6.2% to 4.2% for one year. I said that this would help to actually create a crisis in the Social Security trust fund (that is currently in good shape) that those who want to loot that fund need in order to push through their plans. I am becoming more and more convinced that my cynicism was justified.

The first reason is that we have seen that no tax cut is ‘temporary’. As with the Bush ‘temporary’ tax cuts that were due to expire this year, not continuing them is now being portrayed as a tax increase. So it will be at the end of next year when the payroll tax cut expires. People who oppose the end of this cut will refer to the end as a tax increase and the Democrats will cave and continue it, and this will actually throw all the actuarial calculations out of whack, just as the looters want.

Secondly, the idea that the payroll tax cut will spur consumption (that will in turn act as source of economic stimulus) does not hold up. The small rise in the take home pay (less that $100 per month for a median household income of $50,000) is unlikely to cause people to rush out and buy stuff. If a one-year stimulus plan were the goal, it would have been better to keep the tax level unchanged and send that same family a single check for $1,000, which has a greater chance of being spent. This is the same kind of gimmicky tax rebate stunt that George W. Bush pulled, but it causes less damage than a ‘temporary’ payroll tax cut that will become permanent. (Note that I personally think that a consumption-based economy is insane but for the purpose of argument I am staying within that framework.)

I have a very bad feeling about this. It reinforces my belief that when it comes to adopting policies that harm the poor and middle class, the Democrats are the party of choice for the oligarchs because they know that party supporters will not revolt against their own leadership. They used Bill Clinton to cut welfare benefits to the poor and they are using Obama to attack Social Security. Their plan seems to be working.

The sub-prime mortgage debacle that fuelled the current economic crisis has been devastating for a lot of people. But not all. We know that some actually made huge profits from it. A recent report reveals that some of these same people then made even more profits from the government’s bailout plans, using the low interest money they were given.

The news reporter says, “The fact that some investors who profited amid the financial downturn benefited from TALF could elicit questions about why a U.S. bailout using taxpayer money helped finance new investments for them.” She is living in a fantasyland. Questions are rarely raised about why the government goes out of its way to help the wealthy get even wealthier. Only policies that help poor people get that kind of close scrutiny.

Time magazine has a good article on this.

See also Ted Rall’s latest cartoon.

Obama apologists say that he had to bribe the Republicans with tax breaks (income, estate, dividends) for wealthy people in order to get the things he really wanted (extension of tax cuts for families earning less that $250,000, extension of unemployment benefits).

But there is an alternative hypothesis that explains the same events: that what Obama really wanted was to give the wealthy their tax breaks and that he had to bribe his supporters with the other package in order to get them to support it.

Given his track record and the discussion that has ensued since the deal was announced, which hypothesis makes more sense?