THE FLASHLIGHT, September 20-26, 2008
THE FLASHLIGHT
No Peace without Justice, no Justice without the Facts
September 20-26, 2008
Mary K. Matossian, Editor
mary@matossian.net, Apt. 9-M
The US Economy
PBS 9-19. Fear on Wall Street is the worst in 50 years because a series of financial institutions have collapsed. The meltdown is global in scope.
CNN 9-19. The bailout proposal for Wall Street financial firms proposed by Henry Paulson, Secretary of the Treasury, is for $700 billion, and may reach one trillion, making it “the mother of all bailouts.” As first proposed it would give Paulson immunity from any review in using the money. It is intended to prevent a credit freeze on Wall Street. The original proposal of three pages had expanded to 91 pages on Thursday afternoon.
NYTimes 9-20. The meltdown is global. The stock market of Russia is down by 50%.
Washington Post 9-22. Resentful of the bailout proposal is widespread, and cuts across class lines. People who have been financially prudent are angry at the prospect of assuming hundreds of billions in liability. CNN 9-22. People are saying, “Hell no! Let the failing institutions die!” They ask, “Where’s the bailout for the average American and small business owners? ”
NY Times 9-23. People are saying that the bailout proposal is only in the private interest, not in the public interest. They have little confidence that taxpayers will be paid back later. They want punitive measures taken against the executives responsible for the mess. They demand that there be legislative and judicial review of the actions of Secretary Paulson. They want citizens to have equity in the seized financial institutions. They want caps on the pay of executives in these institutions.
Retirees have been hit especially hard by the crisis. Compared with previous retirees, they have less money in savings, greater exposure to market risk, and longer life expectancies.
CNN 9-23. Senator Dodd warned, that since the US is already deeply in debt and has limited resources, “There will be no second act, no Plan B, if this bailout does not work.” The next President will have few resources to expand education and health services, to fix our failing infrastructures, and to cut taxes for anyone.
CNN 9-23. House Democrats agreed to allow the ban on oil drilling offshore in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans to expire.
Wall Street Journal 9-24. The FBI is investigating fraud in four firms at the heart of the mess: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman, and AIG.
NYTimes 9-26. Late Thursday, 9-25, the federal government made the federal government seized Washington Mutual. It was the largest bank takeover in history. The government sold parts of Washington Mutual to JP Morgan Chase.
NYTimes 9-26. The tentative agreement on a plan for federal action to restore liquidity on Wall Street was destroyed by House Republicans, who seek federal insurance of some kind rather than a buy-out.
US Politics
Wall Street Journal. 9-19. The Journal, now owned by conservative Rupert Murdoch, blasted McCain as incompetent and impulsive on American economic issues.
CNN 9-22. Obama is gaining among seniors and men. On the economy, Obama leads McCain 53 to 42%. On international crises, McCain leads 54 to 44%.
PBS 9-22. On McCain decision making: He relies on his instincts and makes fast judgments – useful when he was a fighter pilot. But he tends to be impulsive rather than analytical. He is hot-tempered and passionate.
PBS 9-23. On Obama decision making: He is deliberate, reflective, and cool. He listens to his advisors. He is moved both by principles and pragmatism. He never acts off the cuff, and avoids digging himself into a hole or backing himself into a corner. He excels at bringing people with different views together.
Washington Post 9-24. According to a recent W Post/ABC poll, Obama now leads McCain 52 to 43. Only 9% still consider Iraq the most important issue of the campaign. There is much movement of college educated whites toward Obama. Whites without college degrees support McCain by a 17 point majority. Unfavorable ratings of Palin increased from 28 to 38%. Among college grads her favorability rating within two week dropped from 60 to 43%. Independents support Obama 53% to 39% for McCain.
NYTimes 9-26. The fate of the presidential debate tonight is uncertain.
Pakistan
CNN 9-20. A big truck bombing in Islamabad destroyed the Marriott Hotel. The explosion was felt three miles away. At least 60 died and 175 were wounded.
Israel
NYTimes 9-26. The settler movement in Israel appears to be turning more violent, as a pipe bomb explodes outside the house of a liberal Israeli professor, Zeev Sternhall. Flyers distributed nearby offered $300,000 for the killing of any member of Peace Now, a pacifist organization which advocates the termination of Jewish settlements on the West Bank. [Under international law these settlements violate the ban on colonizing land which has been seized by unauthorized force.] The settlers claim that the settlements are authorized by God.
There are now over 100 such settlements on the West Bank with about 250,000 settlers among 2.4 million Palestinians. [Most commentators think that unless the settlements are removed a Palestinian state is impossible.]
American Foreign Policy
` The Nation October 6, 2008, Excerpts from “Ten National Security Myths Debunked.”
Myth 1. “It’s a dangerous world. We face an array of serious national security threats…”
“Seven years after the 9/11 attack it is evident that Al-Qaeda lacks the capacity to pose a systemic threat to America. Since 9/11 there have been no major attacks against US targets outside the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan.”
“Iran is too weak economically and militarily to pose a threat to the United States or US allies in the Middle East and is years away from obtaining nuclear weapons.”
Myth 2. “The surge has worked. To draw from Iraq now would snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and embolden Islamic extremists.”
“The drop off in violence reflects the fact that ethnic cleansing led to the internal partition of Iraqi cities and regions, reducing the opportunity for sectarian killing… The [Sunni] Awakening Councils…deserve much of the credit for the decline in violence. So does the decision by Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr to order his militia to stand down…The Shiite-led government seems no more willing to compromise on key issues than it was before the surge…Thus the surge has emboldened the government to consolidate its sectarian gains and buck the wishes of its American supporters, even to the point of demanding a timetable for the end of the occupation”….
Myth 7. “Because the American military is stretched thin by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we must increase the size of our conventional armed forces.”
“The problem is not that we spend too little or have too few forces. After all, the military budget, now almost $600 billion, is almost as large as the combined military budgets of the rest of the world….The lessons we should draw from our experience in Iraq and Afghanistan is not that we need more conventional forces, but that the missions of regime change and counterinsurgency are – in addition to being illegal, in the case of the former, and unethical – are not essential to US interests and cannot be achieved at acceptable cost.”
No Peace without Justice, no Justice without the Facts
September 20-26, 2008
Mary K. Matossian, Editor
mary@matossian.net, Apt. 9-M
The US Economy
PBS 9-19. Fear on Wall Street is the worst in 50 years because a series of financial institutions have collapsed. The meltdown is global in scope.
CNN 9-19. The bailout proposal for Wall Street financial firms proposed by Henry Paulson, Secretary of the Treasury, is for $700 billion, and may reach one trillion, making it “the mother of all bailouts.” As first proposed it would give Paulson immunity from any review in using the money. It is intended to prevent a credit freeze on Wall Street. The original proposal of three pages had expanded to 91 pages on Thursday afternoon.
NYTimes 9-20. The meltdown is global. The stock market of Russia is down by 50%.
Washington Post 9-22. Resentful of the bailout proposal is widespread, and cuts across class lines. People who have been financially prudent are angry at the prospect of assuming hundreds of billions in liability. CNN 9-22. People are saying, “Hell no! Let the failing institutions die!” They ask, “Where’s the bailout for the average American and small business owners? ”
NY Times 9-23. People are saying that the bailout proposal is only in the private interest, not in the public interest. They have little confidence that taxpayers will be paid back later. They want punitive measures taken against the executives responsible for the mess. They demand that there be legislative and judicial review of the actions of Secretary Paulson. They want citizens to have equity in the seized financial institutions. They want caps on the pay of executives in these institutions.
Retirees have been hit especially hard by the crisis. Compared with previous retirees, they have less money in savings, greater exposure to market risk, and longer life expectancies.
CNN 9-23. Senator Dodd warned, that since the US is already deeply in debt and has limited resources, “There will be no second act, no Plan B, if this bailout does not work.” The next President will have few resources to expand education and health services, to fix our failing infrastructures, and to cut taxes for anyone.
CNN 9-23. House Democrats agreed to allow the ban on oil drilling offshore in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans to expire.
Wall Street Journal 9-24. The FBI is investigating fraud in four firms at the heart of the mess: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman, and AIG.
NYTimes 9-26. Late Thursday, 9-25, the federal government made the federal government seized Washington Mutual. It was the largest bank takeover in history. The government sold parts of Washington Mutual to JP Morgan Chase.
NYTimes 9-26. The tentative agreement on a plan for federal action to restore liquidity on Wall Street was destroyed by House Republicans, who seek federal insurance of some kind rather than a buy-out.
US Politics
Wall Street Journal. 9-19. The Journal, now owned by conservative Rupert Murdoch, blasted McCain as incompetent and impulsive on American economic issues.
CNN 9-22. Obama is gaining among seniors and men. On the economy, Obama leads McCain 53 to 42%. On international crises, McCain leads 54 to 44%.
PBS 9-22. On McCain decision making: He relies on his instincts and makes fast judgments – useful when he was a fighter pilot. But he tends to be impulsive rather than analytical. He is hot-tempered and passionate.
PBS 9-23. On Obama decision making: He is deliberate, reflective, and cool. He listens to his advisors. He is moved both by principles and pragmatism. He never acts off the cuff, and avoids digging himself into a hole or backing himself into a corner. He excels at bringing people with different views together.
Washington Post 9-24. According to a recent W Post/ABC poll, Obama now leads McCain 52 to 43. Only 9% still consider Iraq the most important issue of the campaign. There is much movement of college educated whites toward Obama. Whites without college degrees support McCain by a 17 point majority. Unfavorable ratings of Palin increased from 28 to 38%. Among college grads her favorability rating within two week dropped from 60 to 43%. Independents support Obama 53% to 39% for McCain.
NYTimes 9-26. The fate of the presidential debate tonight is uncertain.
Pakistan
CNN 9-20. A big truck bombing in Islamabad destroyed the Marriott Hotel. The explosion was felt three miles away. At least 60 died and 175 were wounded.
Israel
NYTimes 9-26. The settler movement in Israel appears to be turning more violent, as a pipe bomb explodes outside the house of a liberal Israeli professor, Zeev Sternhall. Flyers distributed nearby offered $300,000 for the killing of any member of Peace Now, a pacifist organization which advocates the termination of Jewish settlements on the West Bank. [Under international law these settlements violate the ban on colonizing land which has been seized by unauthorized force.] The settlers claim that the settlements are authorized by God.
There are now over 100 such settlements on the West Bank with about 250,000 settlers among 2.4 million Palestinians. [Most commentators think that unless the settlements are removed a Palestinian state is impossible.]
American Foreign Policy
` The Nation October 6, 2008, Excerpts from “Ten National Security Myths Debunked.”
Myth 1. “It’s a dangerous world. We face an array of serious national security threats…”
“Seven years after the 9/11 attack it is evident that Al-Qaeda lacks the capacity to pose a systemic threat to America. Since 9/11 there have been no major attacks against US targets outside the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan.”
“Iran is too weak economically and militarily to pose a threat to the United States or US allies in the Middle East and is years away from obtaining nuclear weapons.”
Myth 2. “The surge has worked. To draw from Iraq now would snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and embolden Islamic extremists.”
“The drop off in violence reflects the fact that ethnic cleansing led to the internal partition of Iraqi cities and regions, reducing the opportunity for sectarian killing… The [Sunni] Awakening Councils…deserve much of the credit for the decline in violence. So does the decision by Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr to order his militia to stand down…The Shiite-led government seems no more willing to compromise on key issues than it was before the surge…Thus the surge has emboldened the government to consolidate its sectarian gains and buck the wishes of its American supporters, even to the point of demanding a timetable for the end of the occupation”….
Myth 7. “Because the American military is stretched thin by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we must increase the size of our conventional armed forces.”
“The problem is not that we spend too little or have too few forces. After all, the military budget, now almost $600 billion, is almost as large as the combined military budgets of the rest of the world….The lessons we should draw from our experience in Iraq and Afghanistan is not that we need more conventional forces, but that the missions of regime change and counterinsurgency are – in addition to being illegal, in the case of the former, and unethical – are not essential to US interests and cannot be achieved at acceptable cost.”
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