I started reading Egypt's Al-Ahram http://www.ahram.org.eg/weekly/ as a check on western media bias. I am coming to respect thier 'moderate Arab' perspective far more than the mainline US views. The following is from Islam, Palestine and the world order, available at http://www.ahram.org.eg/weekly/2002/607/op5.htm For education and enlightenment only...

If Muslims are to play a positive and significant role in the world today, as they have so often done in the course of their long history, the concrete societal problems that many suffer from have to be addressed. Issues related to poverty and to social justice come first, but domestic reform, political participation and pluralism in Muslim societies need also to be addressed. The responsibility for change naturally falls upon Muslims, but it falls equally on a world order that might impede such change.

If extremism breeds on failure and pessimism, reform requires confidence and realistic hopes for a better future. It is no accident that at the core of the European Enlightenment lay the idea of progress -- the firm belief in the possibility of a better future. Admittedly there is much to be done, but the stakes are equally high.

The writer is dean of Graduate Studies at Birzeit University and director of the Palestinian Institute for the Study of Democracy, based in Ramallah, Palestine.

Standard disclaimer applies:

The New York Times
Oct. 11, 2002
The Economy Is Better Than It Looks
By STEVEN RATTNER


A sense of gloom permeates most conversations about the economy, but our
current situation is not as dire as some would have it. We may not be
growing at the heady rates of the late 1990's, but we're a long way from a
Japan-like bubble economy or even a double-dip recession.

The news is not all bad. In the second half of this year, the economy is
likely to expand at a rate of at least 3 percent, inflation remains subdued
and interest rates are near record lows. Most important, productivity has
continued to rise, surprisingly, right through the recession. That's
particularly important because it means that the efficiency gains of the
90's are intact and building. Only through higher productivity can we
achieve higher incomes - and those are continuing to rise as well. All in
all, our economic performance still leads the world.

So why are we feeling so sorry for ourselves? Lingering joblessness, the
collapse of the stock market, the rash of corporate bankruptcies and the
misconduct of some business leaders are distressing, but they have only a
limited effect on the overall performance of the economy. The dramatic drop
in the stock market, for example, is likely to reduce economic growth this
year by only about 0.7 percentage points from what it otherwise would have
been.

To be sure, challenges remain, like rebuilding shrunken business investment.
Some economic indicators - September retail sales, for example - have not
been encouraging. A war with Iraq could dramatically alter the outlook,
particularly if accompanied by a sharp rise in oil prices.

Even without the prospect of war, some pessimists fear that consumers will
stop spending and that buoyant home prices will turn downward. Either is
certainly possible. But low interest rates allow consumers the opportunity
to refinance their mortgages, the equivalent of a substantial tax cut. Those
low rates have doubtless contributed to home prices that may well have risen
too quickly. Still, just as this year's 30 percent drop in the stock market
hasn't brought down the economy, neither should a softening of housing
prices. Others fret about deflation, the specter of relentlessly declining
prices. Yet prices in the United States are rising enough to make this
unlikely.

We're still feeling the hangover from bad investment decisions in the
telecommunications industry and other areas, as well as the stock market
foolishness of the 90's. Small fixes like extending unemployment benefits
may make sense on economic and humanitarian grounds, but the Bush
administration's ill-conceived tax cuts and exuberant spending by Congress
have put our budget in a straitjacket. Instead of the surpluses of the late
90's, we now face endless deficits. To provide a meaningful stimulus to
today's economy, Washington must concede that we can afford neither tax cuts
nor new spending programs, but there's little political appetite to do that.

The only short-term policy tool available to us is a flexible monetary
policy. Happily, the Federal Reserve has cut interest rates 11 times since
January 2001, and the benefits of low rates are still filtering through the
economy. Another cut would help the recovery by restoring consumer and
investor confidence with little risk of pushing prices up.

But our principal economic challenges lie not with our immediate troubles
but well down the road: a budget deficit unlikely to shrink to acceptable
levels because of tax cuts promised in the future and the failure to address
the eventual exhaustion of our Social Security reserves. Paying more
attention to those long-term issues would be the best medicine for today's
less serious ailments.


Steven Rattner is managing principal at the Quadrangle Group, a private
investment firm.

It is not the same as the 1920's. We are experiencing the same cyclical downturn as then. But the experience of it is much milder than 70 years ago.

The reason is simple. The financial and economic collapse in 1929-1933 was a normal economic perturbation, a bit bigger because of the confluence of two cycles, but no different in basic type from depressions in 1873-1879 and 1893-1897. It was more severe partly because more people were involved in the non-agricultural economy (78%--compared to 58% in 1893 and 48% in 1873) and thus needed money income to survive, and also because of bad luck, both the real-estate and the Kondratiev investment cycle had turned down. The resulting disaster produced a secular crisis, which produced a solution.

Today that solution is still with us, and is being used by the authorities (successfully IMO) to prevent a repeat of 1929-1932 today, even though some 98% of us are dependent on the money economy. Not only that, but it increasingly looks like we lucked out and the real estate cycle is not going to turn down now. (I am of the opinion that this will happen late in the decade--during the next recession--and constitute what Strauss and Howe call the Great Devaluation).

Nevertheless here we are in another secular crisis with another downturn in the Kondratiev investment cycle. And we face serious problems that we didn't in the 1930's. These problems existed in the 1980's and 1990's but we were in a secular upturn then so nobody cared. In fact these problems emerged in the 1970's and have yet to be dealt with.

Fundamentally the economy was far sounder in 1929 than it was in 2000. Once the downturn was dealt with, the economy showed this fundamental strength with the massive 1940-73 boom. This time, we will successfully deal with the downturn--using the policies of the past--but have yet to even face the real problem--the fundamental weakness of our economy and institutions.

But since we will not experience the sort of sharp pain that a financial panic and depression brings, we will not develop a rapid resolution of our problems. So don't expect regeneracy until perhaps 2010 or so.

The same goes for the WOT. If Bush actually invades Iraq, he will prevail. In the end this approach won't work, but it can be pursued with considerable success for quite some time. On the other hand....

It is possible (but but no means certain) that when the dust settles the US will nothave invaded Iraq; instead the inspectors will be back with carte blanche to look everywhere they wish, backed by stern UN resolutions that in effect say, if Saddam doesn't roll over on this, the UN will "let slip the dogs of Bush". Come spring Bush could be riding a wave of popularity having dealt with Saddam without shedding a drop of blood--American OR Iraqi civilians. The DOW will be soaring and it will be "Morning in America" again.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

You have much to learn about financial markets.

Is this a rebuttal or agreement? :-?

It's neither. It's just a comment. Your statement seemed naive to me.

This is a very interesting forum, although I really am a dunce when it comes to stocks and the workings of financial markets. Yet I do wish to make a comment regarding the previous post. It referenced the possibility of a new "Morning in America." Yet the original one circa 1985 at the start of Reagan's second term, should have read, IMO, "Mourning in America." This was the time when the gap between the "haves" and the "have-nots" widened at an alarming rate as well-paid union manufacturing jobs were lost and replaced by, in most cases, much lower paying service jobs. It was also the time when homeless people ceased being all low-life street bums. Many were decent, well-intentioned people whose job skills happened to fall short of those needed in a changing economy. By 1986 there were more homeless than at any time since the Great Depression. Speaking of which, there still seems to be a considerable amount of hubris among our society which seems to say that it would not be possible for us to ever again have another depression of this magnitude. In many ways I believe that many midlife Boomers are guilty of the same sort of hubristic tendencies which they criticized the GI's for back in their youth.

Originally Posted by Brian Beecher

This is a very interesting forum, although I really am a dunce when it comes to stocks and the workings of financial markets. Yet I do wish to make a comment regarding the previous post. It referenced the possibility of a new "Morning in America." Yet the original one circa 1985 at the start of Reagan's second term, should have read, IMO, "Mourning in America." This was the time when the gap between the "haves" and the "have-nots" widened at an alarming rate as well-paid union manufacturing jobs were lost and replaced by, in most cases, much lower paying service jobs. It was also the time when homeless people ceased being all low-life street bums. Many were decent, well-intentioned people whose job skills happened to fall short of those needed in a changing economy. By 1986 there were more homeless than at any time since the Great Depression. Speaking of which, there still seems to be a considerable amount of hubris among our society which seems to say that it would not be possible for us to ever again have another depression of this magnitude. In many ways I believe that many midlife Boomers are guilty of the same sort of hubristic tendencies which they criticized the GI's for back in their youth.

I was writing from the perspective of President Bush. I believe Mr. Bush would like to become known as a second Ronald Reagan, and for it to be Morning in America again in 2004.

Another Great Depression is unlikely precisely because of the legacy left by the New Deal. Notice that today Republicans will ease interest rates rapidly and run huge deficits. Had the Republicans in 1929 done so there would have been no Depression. But they didn't so we got a Depression. This time they did do it and we won't get a Depression. But we will get something else instead that the Republicans aren't dealing with. This other thing will serve the same sort of role as the Depression did for the last crisis. Remember history doesn't repeat--it rhymes.

Has anyone seen Breaker Morant? It was set in South Africa , during the Boer War. Here was an example of empire building using both brute force and political manipulation.

Originally Posted by Brian Beecher

This is a very interesting forum, although I really am a dunce when it comes to stocks and the workings of financial markets...

I too have not studied markets that much. I know there are many perspectives and methods for figuring out what a stock might be worth. A stock share is a piece of paper that produced dividends, its value driven by the expected dividend size... A stock a part ownership in a company, worth at least some fraction of the assets of the company...

But the sum of all stocks on an exchange can be worth no more than the amount of money investors are willing to invest in that exchange. Not too long ago, Arabs noting Dubya's fondness for freezing assets, withdrew funds from any and all places Dubya might seize them... including stock markets. Others - for various reasons including the corporate scandals - have decided to withdraw from the market. While I am normally scornful of claims that the economy is 'fundamentally sound,' it seems fairly clear that the limits on the values of stocks are primarily investor driven.

I can't see a return to anything like the old gold standard, where money was tied to real commodities. Still, the old macroeconomics theory was based on manipulating the money supply. In bad times, money was made available at low interest rates, the better to encourage investments, thus pushing funds into the real economy which provides jobs. In good times, when inflation threatens, interest rates are raised.

This old Keynesian approach presumes banks are the primary method for acquiring or storing money. Government control of banks through the Federal Reserve thus were able to control the economy. Computers and the investment industry have made stocks an equally viable method for raising funds or growing savings. The problem is that the stock market is an alternative money sync/source. Altering interest rates used to be the Keynesian equivalent of printing more money, or taking it out of circulation. In the modern economy, the stock market is also creating wealth out of thin air, and making it vanish into some imaginary cyberspace. Thus, when the Federal Reserve plays its games with interest rates, these games are increasingly being swamped by the market's less controlled influence.

What all this means, I' don't know. Since FDR, variations of Keynesian manipulation of the money supply have kept recessions from developing into depressions. Over recent decades, these manipulations have involved less math and more psychology. Greenspan has had to be more heavy handed on the economic throttle. The game is less about dollars as a tool for lubricating the economy, and more about faith and confidence.

We can't run out of dollars. It is all to easy to print more of them. We can run out of faith. This seems all too plausible.

Bush blames Bali attack on the "Terrans":


http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentSe...=1012571727088

Bush blames Bali attack on the "Terrans":

Hey, I'm sure he's right, too! Those who think it was the work of alien spacecraft are just nuts, IMO.

My evidence that we're moving into a 4T

Didn't the authors say that we should travel in the 3T while we could because travel would be restricted..impossible or unavailable?

I suspect that the Bali incident will play right into that, (along with all the Johnny Talibans that wanted to travel to school in Afghanistan). I don't think that they thought that travel to the corner gas station would be curtailed.

4T.

http://www.thomhartman.com/economiccycles.shtml

This person would definitely agree that we are in a 4T.

Democracy and Economic Cycles
A potential disaster or opportunity?


By Thom Hartmann

In 1776, Adam Smith?s Wealth of Nations was published and the U.S. Declaration of Independence was signed. This was no coincidence: Both were reactions to a widespread economic depression that had begun in the previous decades. England reacted to their economic distress with a series of efforts to raise revenue - the Stamp Act, the Townshend Acts, and the Tea Act (among others); the colonists reacted with the Boston Tea Party and the Declaration of Independence.

There was war and upheaval, and a new nation was born.

Fourscore (80) years later, Abraham Lincoln was a lawyer in private practice, working for the railroads. On August 12, 1857, he was paid $4800 in a check, which he deposited and then converted to cash on August 31. That was fortunate for Lincoln, because just over a month later, in the Great Panic of October, 1857, both the bank and the railroad were ?forced to suspend payment.? Of the 66 banks in Illinois, The Central Illinois Gazette (Champagne) reported that by the following April, 27 of them had gone into liquidation. It was a depression so vast that the Chicago Democratic Press declared at its start, the week of Sept. 30, 1857, ?The financial pressure now prevailing in the country has no parallel in our business history.?

Soon there was war and terrible upheaval: Four years later the nation was split asunder by the Civil War. A transformed and more powerful federal government emerged, changing forever our government?s role in managing the country.

Seventy-five years later the Great Depression bottomed out, and again: war and upheaval, on a greater scale than ever before, accompanied by dramatic transformations in the role and nature of our federal government.

Today we?re approaching that same interval, and people are nervous about another worldwide economic crisis - with good reason. Even beyond the economic consequences, depressions have led to huge political changes. They have ushered in the rise of fascism, the consolidation of communism, the overthrow of monarchy (the American and French revolutions, for example), and the creation of the new and experimental democratic republic of the United States of America. And they?ve almost always led to major wars, with massive suffering worldwide.

But the crisis may bring the opportunity to transform one of the most important mistakes in American history, with consequences that will last for generations. Just as the Chinese character for ?crisis? is made of two parts representing ?danger? and ?opportunity,? so, too, we now face a two-sides-of-the-coin potential for either a positive or negative transformation of America.

Few doubt we?re sliding into the jaws of a worldwide economic disaster- nations are in revolt against their own leaders and the IMF; stock-market-based savings of the middle class have been wiped out across America, Japan, and Europe, destabilizing the future of a billion people; bankruptcies are at their highest levels since the last Great Depression.

Nor do many doubt that modern civilization teeters at the edge of a worldwide war, both in the Middle East and in Asia, that could be far more calamitous than any preceding it.

But what will come out of this time of danger/opportunity? What sort of future can we fashion? Will we use the crisis to create positive change for our children and grandchildren, or allow forces of oppression to have their way? The oppressors too are fighting for survival, and history shows what lengths they?ll go to.

When Germany faced the last depression, its government turned to a hand-in-glove partnership with corporations (German and American) to solidify its power over its own people and wage war on others. Benito Mussolini first named this new form of corporate/state partnership fascism, referring to the old Roman fascia, or bundle of sticks held together with a rope, that was the symbol of power of the Caesars.

This time, Mussolini said, the bundle was the police and military power of the state combined with the economic power of industry. The fascist system was adopted by Italy, Spain, Japan, and Germany.

Mussolini also noted that there was a more accurate word to describe his political/economic system: ?Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism,? he wrote in the Encyclopedia Italiana, ?because it is a merger of state and corporate power.? And indeed, the results of fascism can look very good, at first; in Germany it worked so well that Adolf Hitler was named TIME magazine?s Man of the Year on February 2, 1939.

Democracy is rarer than we think

We think of our civilization as having a democratic heritage, but that?s a mirage. For most of these thousands of years, kings, emperors, Caesars, Popes, and warlords have ruled the lives of ordinary people. Democracy was tried for just 185 years, from 507 BCE to 322 BCE, on the Greek island of Athens; the experiment came to a bloody end with the conquest of the area by warlord Alexander the Great.

The idea lay dormant for two thousand years. The rule of kings and warlords resumed, until the American experiment birthed it again - in the midst of an economic crisis. There have been just three of these 75-year economic cycles in our history, and both of the previous ones threatened the very foundations of human liberty.

Yet as rare as democracy is in history, the concept is immensely compelling to the human spirit, and American expressions of the ideal have been the beacon that has lit the path. From the French Revolution in 1789 to the people?s uprising in Beijing in 1989, people around the world have used language and icons from the pen of Thomas Jefferson and his peers. The Greek-Roman-Masonic-Iroquois-American idea of a government ?deriving its just powers from the consent of the governed? is one of the most powerful and timeless ideas in the world - even if we didn?t quite get it right at first (it was only true for propertied white males), and even if it?s been strained since its inception.

On May 29th, 1989, over twenty thousand people gathered around a 37-foot-tall paper mache statue in Beijing?s Tiananmen Square. They placed their lives in danger, but that statue was such a powerful archetypal representation that many were willing to die for it?and some did. They called their statue the ?Goddess of Democracy?: it was a scale replica of the Statue of Liberty that stands in New York harbor on Liberty Island.

It is tremendously ironic that today some students of American history assert that our ?founding brothers? intended that power belonged to the moneyed elite. Is that a principle for which people would die in Tiananmen Square? No; they died for the goddess of democracy, inscribed ?Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.? They died for the oppressed, and for their own hopes for personal freedom.

?Corporatism? returns - in people?s clothing

But while much of the world moves to emulate the American experiment, contemporary America is moving in the direction of the corporate-state partnership. Executives from regulated industries are heading up the agencies that regulate them. Another symptom of increasing corporate control of the nation is widespread privatization -- a euphemism for shifting control of a commons resource (like water supplies) from government agencies to corporations. And corporations and their agents have become the largest contributors to politicians, political parties, and so-called ?think tanks? which both write and influence legislation.

The distinction between corporate control and human control is absolutely pivotal: governments that derive their just powers from the governed are responsible to citizens and voters, and their agencies are created exclusively to administer and protect the resources of the commons used by citizens and voters. Corporations are responsible only to stockholders and are created exclusively to produce a profit for those stockholders. When aggressive corporations are in seats of power, the results are predictable.

We have recently seen, all too often, the strange fruits borne by placing a corporate sentry where a public guardian should stand: for instance, we now know that the California energy crisis was manipulated into existence by Enron and a few other Texas energy companies. The cost to humans, for this corporate plunder, was horrific; but who was accountable, and who will go on trial? And more to the point, how did it come to be that corporations had the ability to do such things while the public protested vigorously?

I turns out, says the Supreme Court, that they have human rights. In several different decisions, all grounded in an 1886 case, the Court has ruled that corporations are entitled to a voice in Washington, the same as you and me.

But that is a peculiar thought. Our nation is built on equal protection of people (regardless of differences of race, creed, gender, or religion), and corporations are much bigger than people, much more able to influence the government, and don?t have the biological needs and weakness of people. And therein lies the rub - a subtle shift that happened 136 years ago, which put us on this road.

The path from government of, by, and for the people to government of, by, and for the corporations was paved largely by an invented legal premise that corporations are, in fact, people - a premise called ?corporate personhood.? This sates not just that people make up a corporation, but that each corporation, when created by the act of incorporation, is a full-grown ?person? - separate from the humans who work for it or own stock in it - with all the rights granted to persons by the Bill of Rights.

This idea would be shocking to the Founders of the United States. James Madison, often referred to as ?the father of the Constitution,? wrote, ?There is an evil which ought to be guarded against in the indefinite accumulation of property from the capacity of holding it in perpetuity by?corporations. The power of all corporations ought to be limited in this respect. The growing wealth acquired by them never fails to be a source of abuses.?

And in a letter to James K. Paulding, 10 March 1817, Madison made absolutely explicit a lifetime of thought on the matter. ?Incorporated Companies,? he wrote, ?with proper limitations and guards, may in particular cases, be useful, but they are at best a necessary evil only. Monopolies and perpetuities are objects of just abhorrence. The former are unjust to the existing, the latter usurpations on the rights of future generations.?

Yet like democracy itself, the concept of ?corporate personhood? hasn?t been around forever; it arrived long after the death of James Madison (and the entire Revolutionary Era generation). It happened in 1886, when the U.S. Supreme Court?s reporter inserted a personal commentary called a headnote into the decision in the case of Santa Clara County v. Union Pacific Railroad.

For decades the court had repeatedly ruled against the doctrine of corporate personhood, and they avoided the issue altogether in the Santa Clara case, but court reporter J.C. Bancroft Davis (a former corporate president) added a note to the case saying that the Chief Justice, Morrison R. Waite, had said that ?corporations are persons? who should be granted human rights under the free-the-slaves Fourteenth Amendment.

Davis had recorded a remark made in a side conversation that was never part of a ruling by the Court; he phrased it in a way that implied it was part of the decision, but it wasn?t. To the contrary: in the Library of Congress archives, we found a note in Waite?s handwriting, specifically saying to Davis, ?We avoided meeting the constitutional question in the decision.?

Nonetheless, the headnote for that decision was published in 1887 (a year Waite was so ill he rarely showed up in court; he died the next year). Since then corporations have claimed that they are persons - pointing to that decision and its headnote - and, amazingly enough, in most cases the courts have agreed. Many legal scholars think it?s because the courts just didn?t bother to read the case, but instead just read the headnote. But at this point, after a century of acceptance, the misreading has essentially become law, like a common law marriage.

The impact has been almost incalculable. As ?persons,? corporations have claimed the First Amendment right of free speech and - even though they can?t vote - they now spend hundreds of millions of dollars to influence elections, prevent regulation of their own industries, and write or block legislation. Before 1886, in most states this was all explicitly against the law. Since 1886, they sued to have these ?unequal? restrictions removed.

As a ?person,? corporations can (and do) claim the Fourth Amendment right of privacy and prevent government regulators from performing surprise inspections of factories, accounting practices, and workplaces, leading to uncontrolled polluters and hidden accounting crimes. Before 1886 this was also, in most states, explicitly against the law. (Interestingly, corporations have also successfully claimed that when people come to work on their ?personal private property,? those people are agreeing to give up their own constitutional rights to privacy, free speech, etc.)

As a ?person,? corporations can claim that when a community?s voters pass laws to ban them, those voters are engaging in illegal discrimination and violating the corporation?s ?human rights? guaranteed in the Fourteenth Amendment - even if the corporation has been convicted of felonies. Ironically, the laws the corporations overturn are often referred to as ?bad boy laws? because they reference past crimes committed by the corporations (which cannot be jailed, so they pay fines instead). The result has been an Alice In Wonderland situation where a corporation convicted of felonies can and does own television stations (GE, for example, has been convicted of felonies but owns many television stations), but when a man in the Midwest was recently convicted of a felony the FCC moved to strip him of his TV station.

The terrible irony is that corporations insist on the protections owed to humans, but not the responsibilities and consequences borne by humans. They don?t have human weaknesses - don?t need fresh water to drink, clean air to breathe, uncontaminated food to eat, and don?t fear imprisonment, cancer, or death. While asserting their own right to privacy protections from government regulators, they claim that workers relinquish nearly all their human rights of free speech, privacy, and freedom from self-incrimination when they enter the ?private property? of the workplace.

This is an absolute perversion of the principle cited in the Declaration of Independence, which explicitly states that the government of the United States was created by people and for people, and operates only by consent of the people whom it governs. The Declaration states this in unambiguous terms: ?We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.?

The result of corporate personhood has been relentless erosion of government?s role as a defender of human rights and of government?s responsibility to respond to the needs of its human citizens. Instead, we?re now seeing a steady insinuation of corporate representatives and those beholden to corporations into legislatures, the judiciary, and even the highest offices in the land.

We stand before an historic opportunity

Economic downturns have historically represented social and political transition points, times of great difficulty but also of great opportunity. The next few years may be one of those rare windows in time.

We have reached the point in the United States where corporatism has nearly triumphed over democracy. If events continue on their current trajectory, the ability of our government to respond to the needs and desires of humans - things like fresh water, clean air, uncontaminated food, independent local media, secure retirement, and accessible medical care - may vanish forever, effectively ending the world?s second experiment with democracy. We will have gone too far down Mussolini?s road, and most likely will encounter similar consequences: a militarized police state, a government unresponsive to its citizens and obsessed with secrecy, a ruling elite drawn from the senior ranks of the nation?s largest corporations, and war.

Alternatively, if we awaken soon and reverse the 1886 mistake that created corporate personhood, it?s still possible we can return to the democratic republican principles that animated Jefferson and brought this nation into being. Our government - elected by human citizen voters - can shake off the past thirty years of exploding corporatism and throw the corporate agents and buyers-of-influence out of the hallowed halls of Congress. We can restore our stolen human rights to humans, and keep corporate activity constrained within the boundaries of that which will help and heal and repair our Earth rather than plunder it.

The path to doing this is straightforward, and being taken now across America. Ten communities in Pennsylvania have passed ordinances denying corporate-owned factory farms the status of persons. The city of Point Arena, California passed a resolution denying corporate personhood, and other communities are considering following their example. Citizens across the nation are looking into the possibility of passing local laws denying corporate personhood, on the hope that one will eventually be brought before the Supreme Court so the Court can explicitly correct its reporter?s 1886 error. Taking another tack, some are suggesting that the Fourteenth Amendment should be re-amended to insert the word ?natural? before the word ?person,? an important legal distinction that will sweep away a century of legalized corporate excesses and reasserting the primacy of humans.

The concern is not corporations per se; the bludgeon of corporate personhood is rarely used by small or medium companies, only by a handful of the world?s largest, to force their will on governments and communities. This means a very small number of parties (the biggest corporations) are all that stand in the way of reform, which means the corporate personhood doctrine is the weakest link in the chain of corporate power. And it?s a link that can be broken by alert and activist citizens, thus steering America away from Mussolini?s view of government and back on course toward that of our nation?s Founders. What is required is that we undo that 1886 court reporter?s incorrect headnote, by any of the means people are beginning to try.

Once again in America, we must do what Jefferson always hoped we would: ?the people, being the only safe depository of power, should exercise in person every function which their qualifications enable them to exercise, consistently with the order and security of society.? We must seize the moment to take back the power, for our children and our children?s children?s children.


This article is copyright 2002 by Thom Hartmann, and largely excerpted from Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights by Thom Hartmann, published by Rodale Books, 2002.

"The concern is not corporations per se; the bludgeon of corporate personhood is rarely used by small or medium companies, only by a handful of the world’s largest, to force their will on governments and communities."

In one sentence, the author turns most of what he wrote into mush.

If he's concerned about the power of big business, why doesn't he just say so without all the flim-flam?

Quotes from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2002Oct15.html

"There is anti-incumbent mood," said John Zogby, who heads Zogby International. "Call it the politics of disappointment."

Zogby's take on all of this is that there is a general feeling of unfocused dissatisfaction among voters this year. With no one thing dominating political discourse, there is a general feeling among voters that politicians are not fixing their problems. Coming out of the defining moment of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, voters wanted to be reassured by their institutions. Instead, voters watched scandal envelop the Catholic church while the stock market eviscerated their. Meanwhile, the economy floundered, but with so much parity in politics, there was no one culprit to blame. The specter of more terrorist attacks and war in Iraq only served to compound the feelings of discomfort and uncertainty.

<hr>

Is it just me, or does this not sound almost word-for-word what S&H wrote in their book? Welcome to the pre-regeneracy 4T.

Wadda thread, huh? Only seems appropriate that a great song, of the whinging sort, be sung by consensus, here:

ALTOGETHER NOW:

Raindrops are falling on my head
And just like the guy whose feet are too big for his bed,
Nothing seems to fit
Those
Raindrops are falling on my head,
They keep falling.

So I just did me some talking to the sun,
And I said I didn't like the way he got things done,
Sleeping on the job
Those
Raindrops are falling on my head they keep falling

But there's one thing, I know
The blues they sent to meet me won't defeat me.
It won't be long 'till happiness steps up to greet me

Raindrops keep falling on my head
But that doesn't mean my eyes will soon be turning red.
Crying's not for me, cuz
I'm never gonna stop the rain by complaining
Because I'm free
Nothing's worrying me

It won't be long till happiness steps up to greet me

Raindrops keep falling on my head
But that doesn't mean my eyes will soon turning red
Crying's not for me
I'm never gonna stop the rain by complaining
Because I'm free
Nothing's worrying me :wink: (Gag me with a spoon, or whatever you whiners choose!)

Originally Posted by AlexMnWi

Heck, if you go by the Dow it began on January 14, 2000 (intraday). Although the Dow closed up on that day, its all time peak of just under 12,000 was higher than the close.

I would place the start of the first Great Devaluation to be in March of 2000. Can't remember the exact date, but it began with the sudden crash of Nasdaq. Before that date, America still seemed to be in an Indian Summer. Afterwards, the Indian Summer seemed to have quickly died. A fall chill seemed to set in. Xers in the tech sector seemed to "burn out" after this date.

Originally Posted by madscientist

http://www.thomhartman.com/economiccycles.shtml

This person would definitely agree that we are in a 4T.

Democracy and Economic Cycles
A potential disaster or opportunity?

I agree, this guy is aware of cycles. He is also one of several political advocates attempting to make corporatism the central issue of the Crisis. While his emphasis comes from an internal American perspective, his message strike chords with what I'm seeing abroad from Arundhati Roy and the moderate Arab press.

My own view of the crisis is complex. I see ethnic, religious, military, economic, political and ecological issues. I can quite understand how different people with different experiences thus different values would focus on different areas. Still, if a new world view is going to center a new culture, the Gray Champion and his prophets have to get out a simplified coherent message. One has to push one thing as the central core problem which is driving all other problems.

"Corporatist" might be the correct idea and theme. Of course, this is just a slight twist away from 'Capitalist'. As has been said, everything Marx said about capitalism was correct. Everything he said about socialism was wrong. Marx is dead. Long live Marx.

Jefferson and Locke were more correct about how to structure a government. Government must advocate the needs and desires of the people, not of the ruling elite. Checks and balances limiting the power of governments and other interests are necessary. One party communist government - lacking any checks on the power of the elites save armed revolution and economic collapse - has clearly been a failure. This does not invalidate Marx's points about democracies giving too much power to the capitalist elites. The solution involves more checks on the power of the elites, not replacing the elites with a totally unchecked single party dictatorships.

Hartman and Roy are still voices crying in the wilderness, but they are not alone. Their perspective might not remain obscure.

Would a Right Libertarian/Left Libertarian gov't respond ruthlessly to a terrorist campaign? Given that the last Crisis saw people of Japanese descent herded into concentration camps....

Originally Posted by Tim Walker

Would a Right Libertarian/Left Libertarian gov't respond ruthlessly to a terrorist campaign? Given that the last Crisis saw people of Japanese descent herded into concentration camps....

One would hope that they would confine their response to the actual terrorists themselves, ruthlessly or not. One very significant point a lib would make is that the likelihood of terrorist action against a nation with a libertarian foreign policy would be near nonexistent -- see the history of the Swiss (again, remember, I said a libertarian foreign policy).

Is the US targeting the wrong spoke of the Axis of Evil?

Be careful what you wish for, Kiff.

I'm not wishing for anything. I'm just trying to get a discussion started on North Korea.

This is evidence that if it be 4T, we sure ain't at the Regeneracy. From the New York Times:

Congress Will Return to Budget After Election

October 17, 2002
By CARL HULSE

WASHINGTON, Oct. 16 - Confronted with a budget impasse and an approaching election, Congress agreed tonight to finance government agencies until late November and put off much of an unfinished legislative agenda to a post-election lame-duck session.

The Republican-led House, defying Democratic critics, voted 228 to 172 to keep federal agencies running at current spending levels until Nov. 22, and the Democratic-led Senate quickly followed suit.

Representative Dick Armey of Texas, the majority leader, told lawmakers that the House was recessing and would return on Nov. 12 to try to break the legislative logjam. Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota, the majority leader, suggested, on the other hand, that the Senate could remain in session into next week.

"There is still a lot that can be done and we are going to press forward," Mr. Daschle said, noting that he would push for votes on an extension of unemployment benefits and an increase in the minimum wage.

Mr. Armey cautioned House members that they could be called back with 48 hours' notice if the Senate was able to make progress on such issues as the creation of a Homeland Security Department.

"The House still waits on many important pieces of legislation," he said.

There was other pre-election finger-pointing as House Democrats accused Republicans of walking away from domestic spending and policy bills after devoting much of the past weeks to the debate over Iraq.

"This Congress has lost all claim to respectability," said Representative David R. Obey of Wisconsin, the senior Democrat on the Appropriations Committee. "It has lost all claim to go to the public and ask for another two-year
contract."

Republicans blamed Senate Democrats for inaction on many of the measures and said the House had fulfilled its obligations by passing its own initiatives on such subjects as health care and protecting workers' pensions.

"The House has acted," said Representative Nancy L. Johnson, Republican of Connecticut.

Republican House leaders emphasized that they were willing to return should the Senate pass the homeland security bill, or if negotiators reached agreement on an energy bill, terrorism insurance, a port security measure or other issues in talks between the House and Senate. Those issues, along with remaining spending bills and stalled nominations, could also be taken up in the post-election session.

"We are not pulling the plug," said John Feehery, a spokesman for Speaker J. Dennis Hastert. "We are making a practical decision that instead of sitting here twiddling our thumbs waiting for the Senate, we can put more pressure
on the Senate by getting our constituents involved." In the Senate, Democrats accepted the funding measure through an agreement with Republicans, though one Democratic leader said it was done reluctantly.

"This is not the right way to run government," the leader, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, said.

The passage of what is known as a continuing resolution was made necessary by the inability of Congress to pass many of its spending bills this year. The Senate approved a record $355 billion defense spending measure today on a 93-to-1 vote, making it only the second of 13 required bills to be passed by both chambers and sent to President Bush. The House passed three other of the spending bills, and the Senate has passed one other spending bill.

Republicans in both the House and the Senate said the failure of the Senate to approve a budget this year threw the appropriations process into disarray, but Democrats say disputes among Republicans on spending levels derailed the
program.

House Republicans said they did not think they would be criticized by their constituents for bringing their work to a stop.

"I think we have a good defense in saying that if the Senate will pass something, we will come back," said Representative Porter J. Goss, Republican of Florida.

Representative Doc Hastings, Republican of Washington, said, "The other body, on many pieces of legislation, is behind us."

Some Republicans said the decision could be a political problem for lawmakers in tight House and Senate races who were hoping that Congress could provide some drought relief for farmers and ranchers.

Democrats said Republicans should be held accountable.

"It is a complete abdication of Congressional responsibility," said Representative Charles W. Stenholm, Democrat of Texas.

House Republicans also dropped their plan to bring up a package of tax breaks for investors and other economic provisions, including an extension of unemployment benefits for some workers.

The legislation, which had been scheduled to come up on the House floor today, was pulled after some Republicans in tight election races said they had other priorities, including the drought aid. Some moderate Republicans had
also been wary of voting on the tax provisions, which would largely benefit upper-income people, at a time when many low- and moderate-income people are being squeezed by the weak economy or are nervous about their jobs.

In the Senate, lawmakers also restored lapsed budget rules as leaders sought to avoid what they feared could become legislative guerrilla warfare.

Leaders of both parties backed the reinstatement for six months of what are known as budget enforcement rules. Under these restrictions, put in place in the early 1990's to try to force Congress to live within its means, bills that increase spending or cut taxes beyond levels allowed in the budget require 60 votes to waive the rules.

That 60-vote threshold has made it difficult for backers of costly new spending programs or tax cuts to get their way in the Senate, and some senators feared that lawmakers would try to bring such popular but expensive measures to the floor if the budget rules were gone for much longer.

"The most significant opportunity to save taxpayers money for the next fiscal year is this little resolution," said Senator Pete V. Domenici of New Mexico, the senior Republican on the Budget Committee.

Mr. Domenici introduced the legislation along with Senator Kent Conrad, the North Dakota Democrat who is chairman of the budget panel.