Noam Chomsky: Big Business Dictates the Presidency

Complete video at: http://fora.tv/2009/10/06/Noam_Chomsk…

“Campaign funding is a remarkable predictor of election, and also of policy,” says linguist and political activist Noam Chomsky. He asserts that the Supreme Court is currently considering a lawsuit that would allow corporations to “buy elections directly, instead of indirectly.”

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World-renowned intellectual Noam Chomsky has been pushing change in language, politics and culture for decades. The controversial expert on modern language explains why “the smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum.” – Commonwealth Club of California

Noam Chomsky, a professor of linguistics and philosophy at MIT, is the author of numerous books on U.S. foreign policy, including American Power and the New Mandarins, Political Economy of Human Rights (two volumes, written with Edward Herman), Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel, and the Palestinians, and Pirates and Emperors, Old and New: International Terrorism in the Real World. His most recent books are Failed States and Perilous Power.

Fired U.N. diplomat says he warned against fraud

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon fired the top U.S. official at the U.N. mission in Afghanistan on Wednesday over differences the official, Peter Galbraith, had with his boss over how to deal with charges of fraud in the Afghan presidential election. Galbraith tells NPR the dispute was over whether the U.N. should do anything about the fraud in the Afghan presidential election.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon fired the top U.S. official at the U.N. mission in Afghanistan on Wednesday over differences the official, Peter Galbraith, had with his boss over how to deal with charges of fraud in the Afghan presidential election.

A statement issued by Ban’s office said the secretary-general had decided to “recall” Galbraith and end his appointment as the U.N.’s deputy special representative to Afghanistan. Galbraith, the former U.S. ambassador to Croatia, was publicly critical of apparent corruption in the Aug. 20 presidential election, and was at odds with his boss, Special Representative Kai Eide, over how the U.N. should have responded to the election.

Preliminary results from the Aug. 20 election show that President Hamid Karzai won a majority, but final results have been delayed by fraud allegations that prompted a partial recount.

Galbraith tells NPR’s Robert Siegel that the disagreement with Eide centered on “ghost” polling stations — set up in insecure areas and that could be used to produce votes that were never cast. He says he also disagreed with Eide on sharing U.N. data on fraud with Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission.

Eide, Galbraith says, opposed sharing data, and decided that the U.N. would say nothing about the polling centers after the Afghan government complained about Galbraith’s call to close them.

“The dispute was whether the United Nations should do anything about the fraud that took place,” Galbraith says.

Continue reading: SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA PUBLIC RADIO

Republicans steal Barack Obama’s internet campaigning tricks

Since their election disaster, the right has used new media to gather strength, culminating in last weekend’s huge protest

Erik Telford remembers all too vividly the dark cloud hanging over him on 5 November 2008, the day after Barack Obama was elected president. For the internet strategist at the rightwing campaign group Americans for Prosperity, election night was a double disaster. Not only had Obama won the votes, he had outwitted his Republican opponents in his use of new media tricks such as email recruiting and social networking.

“The left was far ahead of us. The efforts that Obama put into internet campaigning and what he accomplished were extraordinary,” Telford says.

That cloud hung over the conservative movement for many weeks. A sense of crisis set in, he recalls, with bloggers, strategists and Republican politicians scrambling in different directions.

“There was a real lack of leadership, a lot of confusion.”

But then, almost imperceptibly, something started to happen. Telford noticed Google groups popping up, listserves on which people would send angry emails back and forth. The anger was stimulated by Obama’s $800bn stimulus package that was introduced five days into his presidency.

With very little leadership, the Google groups began to co-ordinate their response. People took on the onerous job of poring over the bill’s hundreds of pages of small print in search of wasteful spending, following the Wikipedia model of crowd-sourcing.

They began to uncover items that looked suspicious or ridiculous: electric golf carts, snow machines, a crime museum in Las Vegas. They passed the examples on to mainstream media outlets, notably the new face of the right, snake-tongued Glenn Beck of Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News channel, who used it as ammunition to attack the young administration. The anger grew. When Americans for Prosperity put up its own petition against the bill on its website, it had 500,000 signatures within days.

“It was a huge wake-up call to all of us,” Telford says. “On the right, people had known new media was important but they were still hesitant about it. After the stimulus experience, no one was left in any doubt about its power.”

Continue reading: THE GUARDIAN

Europe Says One-Third of Karzai Votes Are Suspect

KABUL, Afghanistan — European Union monitors said Wednesday that about one-third of the votes cast for President Hamid Karzai in the Aug. 20 election are suspicious and should be examined for fraud.

Their assertion was a more serious indictment of the election’s already-marred integrity than that of other foreign monitors and only deepened the political crisis here. President Karzai’s campaign office angrily dismissed the E.U. assertion, which came as the latest preliminary tally of votes showed he had won — if the suspected ballots are included.

Mr. Karzai, who is vying for a second five-year term, won 54.6 percent of the vote, enough to avoid a runoff election, according to the tally released by the country’s independent election commission. His closest challenger, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, won 27.8 percent.

But the election was tainted by blatant evidence ofballot-box-stuffing and other frauds, and the country’s United Nations-backed Electoral Complaints Commission has ordered recounts and forensic examinations of ballot boxes in 10 percent of polling stations — involving at least 15 percent, and possibly a far higher proportion, of reported votes. The complaints commission, headed by a Canadian, is the ultimate arbiter of election results.

Continue reading: NEW YORK TIMES

Western hypocrisy – elections in Iran vs elections in Afghanistan

The “evidence” that Iranian election were stolen was the fact that the results were released too quickly.

This was enough for Western politicians and media to condemn the Iranian regime and cause rage and protests of the Western public.

On the other hand, the overwhelming evidence that Hamid Karzai, the Western puppet in Afghanistan, has clearly stolen the election is not causing any rage and protests.

Nearly 20 percent of the voters registered for the recent Afghan election were under age – in many cases as young as 12 years old.

This amounts to nearly 3.5 million cards issued to children.

Thousands of voting cards have been offered for sale and thousands of dollars offered in bribes to buy votes two days before the elections.

According to the most recent allegations, “up to 800 fake polling stations were set up by Hamid Karzai’s supporters to give him thousands of fraudulent votes.”

Continue reading: GATHER

The longest 47 seconds ever

For some strange reason — it might have something to do with George W. Bush’s disapproval rating, which is the highest recorded for any president — John McCain’s campaign apparently doesn’t want its candidate seen in public with the president.

The two appeared together at a fundraiser in Arizona on Tuesday, but the fundraiser was closed to the press. Then, McCain accompanied Bush to the airport for the president’s flight out. Their time at the airport was the only moment when the press could capture images of the two together, and even then, according to Fox News, they were within camera shot for only 47 seconds, and were together on the tarmac for just 26 seconds. They gave each other a very quick hug, and an even quicker handshake, before Bush boarded Air Force One.

Video is below.

(Continue reading: War Room-Salon.com)

Military Chief Warns Troops About Politics

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has written an unusual open letter to all those in uniform, warning them to stay out of politics as the nation approaches a presidential election in which the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will be a central, and certainly divisive, issue.

“The U.S. military must remain apolitical at all times and in all ways,” wrote the chairman, Adm. Mike Mullen, the nation’s highest-ranking officer. “It is and must always be a neutral instrument of the state, no matter which party holds sway.”

Admiral Mullen’s essay appears in the coming issue of Joint Force Quarterly, an official military journal that is distributed widely among the officer corps.

The essay is the first Admiral Mullen has written for the journal as chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and veteran officers said they could not remember when a similar “all-hands” letter had been issued to remind military personnel to remain outside, if not above, contentious political debate.

The essay can be seen as a reflection of the deep concern among senior officers that the military, which is paying the highest price in carrying out national security policy, may be drawn into politicking this year.

The war in Iraq has already exceeded the length of World War II and is the nation’s longest conflict fought with an all-volunteer military since the Revolutionary War.

In particular, members of the Joint Chiefs have expressed worries this election year about the influence of retired officers who advise political campaigns, who have publicly called for a change in policy or who serve as television commentators on the war.

Among the most outspoken were those who joined the so-called generals’ revolt in 2006 demanding the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, as well as former officers who have written books attacking the Bush administration’s planning for and execution of the war in Iraq.

(Continue reading: New  York Times)

Bush’s Attack Helps Obama

In the wake of George W. Bush’s thinly veiled attack on Barack Obama from Israel’s Knesset, in which the president aimed parallels between the appeasement of Nazi Germany and weakness on terror at the Illinois Senator, Democrats were enraged.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called it, “beneath the dignity of office.” Senator Joe Biden of Delaware, never one to mince words, called it “bullsh*t.”

And while the Obama campaign expressed it’s own outrage, it may want to hold its fire: George Bush may have just given the Democrats enough ammunition to take the White House in November.

True, Bush’s comments were inflammatory. He raised the issue of Nazi Germany, mentioned the name of Adolph Hitler in- of all places- Israel. And while the setting and delivery might have come as somewhat of a shock to the political world, it’s substantively nothing new. In fact, a central focus of John McCain’s summer and fall campaign will be to paint Obama as being soft on terror. But the significance of Bush’s statements has less to do with what he said than it does with the fact that he said it at all.

In firing a salvo of his own, George W. Bush planted himself firmly in John McCain’s camp. Consider what kind of dead weight that is for the Arizona Senator: Bush’s approval rating stands at a paltry 27%. Essentially, the president put a target on McCain’s chest at which Obama can take aim.

(Continue reading: Eyes on Obama)

Finding Obama guilty of insufficient devotion to Israel

The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg conducted what he’s calling an “interview” with Barack Obama regarding Israel, but it sounded much more like an inquisition. Goldberg repeatedly demanded that Obama swear his devotion to Israel and affirm prevailing orthodoxies (“I’m curious to hear you talk about the Zionist idea. Do you believe that it has justice on its side?”; “Go to the kishke question, the gut question: the idea that if Jews know that you love them, then you can say whatever you want about Israel, but if we don’t know you –- Jim Baker, Zbigniew Brzezinski –- then everything is suspect. There seems to be in some quarters, in Florida and other places, a sense that you don’t feel Jewish worry the way a senator from New York would feel it”; “Do you think that Israel is a drag on America’s reputation overseas?”; “If you become President, will you denounce settlements publicly?”). Afterwards, Goldberg pronounced himself satisfied: “Obama expressed — in twelve different ways — his support for Israel to me.”

Marty Peretz, after a telephone conversation with Obama devoted primarily to Israel, similarly clears Obama of any suspicions of disloyalty, approvingly noting that Obama “recognizes” that Israeli settlements of the West Bank are not “the core problem” for the conflict with the Palestinians (to Peretz, such settlements “are very much a side-issue”). Peretz further decrees that Obama’s “exhilarating experience with American Jews and with their bonds to the dream and realities of Israel” was evident in both Goldberg’s interview and in Obama’s call with Peretz.

Needless to say, Obama’s vows of devotion to Israel were not enough for the right-wing polemicists who endlessly play on the fears of American Jews and exploit Israel-related issues for political gain. GOP leaders in the House — such as Minority Leader John Boehner — issued highly inflammatory statements regarding Obama’s interview with Goldberg, condemning Obama for describing Israel as a “constant sore” when, in fact, Obama used that term to describe the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — not Israel (that lie by Boehner and others was so severe that Goldberg, to his credit, embraced Andrew Sullivan’s description of Boehner’s statement as a “flat-out lie” and added that it was “mendacious, duplicitous, gross, and comically refutable”).

But beyond the outright lying, right-wing condemnation of Obama’s desperately pro-Israel remarks is highly revealing. David Frum complained yesterday that while Obama embraced the notion that “the Zionist idea has justice on its side,” he followed that up with a “disclaimer.” What was the “disclaimer” that so upset Frum? This:

OBAMA: That does not mean that I would agree with every action of the state of Israel, because it’s a government and it has politicians, and as a politician myself I am deeply mindful that we are imperfect creatures and don’t always act with justice uppermost on our minds.

Hideous! We can’t have an American President who reserves the right to do something other than “agree with every action of the state of Israel.” Frum generously declares that Obama is not anti-semitic, but finds him guilty of being “cavalier with Israel’s security” (this blogger pronounces Frum correct and adds this “condemnation” of Obama: “I do not believe that the man hates Israel, but he doesn’t love it either

“).

All of this is grounded in the unexamined premise that failure to love Israel with sufficient passion or to be sufficiently devoted to its interests ought to be disqualifying by itself — presumably since, as everyone knows, the Founders intended the first obligation of the U.S. President to be to preserve Israel’s security, just as George Washington said in his farewell address:

In the execution of such a plan, nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave.

As is typical for neoconservatives of Frum’s strain, he pretends that he is some sort of spokesman for “pro-Israel” voters generally, notwithstanding the fact that the vast majority of American Jews (and even large numbers of Israelis) reject Frum’s core political beliefs about the Middle East. Says Frum:

Obama’s declared position on Israel fails to reassure friends of Israel because it is so incongruous with the other things he says and thinks . . . He may consider himself Israel’s friend. But he will be a dangerous friend — made all the more dangerous by the reluctance of many in the pro-Israel community to ask searching questions of this supremely evasive politician.

Frum’s conceit in thinking that he speaks for “friends of Israel” is manifest. A recent Gallup poll found that among American Jewish voters, Obama destroys McCain (61-32%), virtually the same margin by which they would favor Clinton over McCain (65-27%). The neoconservative views of Frum, a former Bush speechwriter, are representative only of a small minority of American Jews, just as they are representative only of a small minority of Americans generally. He doesn’t speak in any way for “friends of Israel,” and virtually nothing that he and his comrades favor have been “good for Israel” in any meaningful sense.

But what’s most striking about the reaction is how explicit this strain of neocons has become about the fact that being “pro-Israel” is their overriding political concern. It also reveals, yet again, that there is no issue that permits less free debate than ones related to Israel.

Barack Obama runs around proclaiming his devotion to this other country; virtually wraps himself in its flag; vows to shun its enemies (who are not our enemies); is forced ritualistically to “express[] — in twelve different ways — his support for Israel” to the likes of Israel-centric war supporters like Jeffrey Goldberg and Marty Peretz; tells Palestinians to their faces that — to use his words — “if you’re waiting for America to distance itself from Israel, you are delusional”; affirms every one-sided piety applied to Israel-related issues; has compiled large numbers of prominent Jewish supporters for whom Israel is a top, if not the top, issue; and still . . . the dominant narrative among neocons and in the establishment media is that, deep down in his heart, he may be insufficiently devoted to Israel to be President of the United States. Has there ever been another country to which American politicians were required to pledge their uncritical, absolute loyalty the way they are, now, with Israel?

(Continue reading: Glen Greenwald-Salon.com)

Poetry vs. fear

The Obama-McCain contest will hold up a mirror to America’s soul.

The coming presidential election will present America with the starkest political choice it has faced in a generation. On one side, we have Barack Obama — the first black candidate to make it to the finals, a staunch liberal who opposes the Bush administration’s Iraq war and its massive giveaway to the rich. On the other, we have John McCain, a onetime maverick who expeditiously crawled back into the far-right bosom of the GOP and is running as Son of Bush.

It’s the collision of an irresistible force with an immovable object. Obama, combined with Bush’s disastrous legacy, is the irresistible force. Obama is a consummately skilled and pragmatic politician who has inspired millions of young voters, owns the black vote, and has demonstrated he can appeal to independents and swing voters outside the traditional Democratic constituency. Forget the recent polls showing that some Hillary Clinton supporters won’t vote for him — once Clinton gracefully bows out of the race, her supporters will close ranks around Obama. Anyone who seriously thinks a significant number of them are going to vote for McCain is delusional. The Democrats will go into November united and energized.

And, of course, they will benefit enormously from the train-wreck presidency of George W. Bush. According to a CNN poll, Bush is the most unpopular president in modern American history: a staggering 71 percent of Americans disapprove of how he is handling the job, the first time any president’s disapproval rating has reached into the 70s. Support for Bush’s signature achievement, the war in Iraq, is also at an all-time low, with 68 percent opposed to it. Things are no better for the Republicans on the domestic front, with voters battered by record-high gas prices and a tanking economy. On the issues, there is simply no ray of hope anywhere for the GOP.

(Continue reading: Salon.com)

Officials: ‘Good possibility’ McCain will pick Rice

Palestinians ‘told we may be dealing with her in the future as vice president’

JERUSALEM – There is a “good possibility” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice could be chosen as Sen. John McCain’s presidential running mate, Palestinian officials here say they were told by U.S. politicians in recent days.

“We were told by U.S. politicians there is a good possibility we may still be dealing with Rice in the future, but this time as vice president,” one Palestinian official told WND.

Another Palestinian official also said he recently heard from U.S. politicians Rice is likely to be McCain’s running mate.

Neither Palestinian official would say which U.S. politicians provided them with the information.

Both Palestinian officials regularly meet with Rice, including during her trip to the region earlier this month to push through Israeli-Palestinian negotiations started at last November’s U.S.-sponsored Annapolis summit.

The Palestinian officials also meet regularly with U.S. regional security coordinators and State Department officials.

Rice in February denied she is seeking the vice presidential slot.

“I have always said that the one thing that I have not seen myself doing is running for elected office,” Rice said at a news conference. “I didn’t even run for high school president. It’s sort of not in my genes.”

The State Department has not replied to WND’s request for comment.

(Continue reading: WorldNetDaily)

Clinton In 2005: ‘I Agree With McCain’ On Long-Term Iraq Presence

Three years ago, during an appearance on CBS, Sen. Hillary Clinton stated that she agreed with the overarching premise of John McCain’s Iraq policy: that America’s commitment to the war shouldn’t be based on time frames but rather on the level of troop casualties. She even cited, as McCain now regularly does, that the United States would be well suited to follow a model for troop presence based on South Korea, Japan, or Germany.

“Senator McCain made the point earlier today, which I agree with, and that is, it’s not so much a question of time when it comes to American military presence for the average American; I include myself in this. But it is a question of casualties,” said Clinton. “We don’t want to see our young men and women dying and suffering these grievous injuries that so many of them have. We’ve been in South Korea for 50-plus years. We’ve been in Europe for 50-plus. We’re still in Okinawa with respect to protection there coming out of World War II.”

The quote, which resurfaced on liberal websites late Sunday night, underscores both the evolution of Clinton’s stance on Iraq and the war itself.

(Continue reading: Huffington Post)

Howard Dean On Fox News Sunday: Your Coverage Is “Shockingly Biased”

During an appearance on Fox News Sunday this morning, Democratic Party chairman Howard Dean said that Fox’s news coverage has at times been “shockingly biased, and I think that’s wrong and I just say so right up front.” Dean also said he agreed with the netroots campaign to boycott the Democratic debates on the network.

Host Chris Wallace tried to get Dean to bash MoveOn and Daily Kos, saying they were “using words about you guys showing up here as weak, idiotic, stupid. How do you respond to the left wing?”

(Continue reading: Huffington Post)

Clinton: US would attack and “obliterate” Iran

Clinton’s poll day threat to Iran

The state’s voter demographics are presumed to favour Mrs Clinton   Hillary Clinton has issued a stark warning to Iran, as Democrats in Pennsylvania vote to choose between her and Barack Obama to run for president. She said the US would attack, and could “obliterate” Iran, if it launched a nuclear strike on Israel. Mrs Clinton has been playing up foreign affairs and leadership as she tries to make up ground in the Democratic race. She leads polls in Pennsylvania, the largest remaining state, but analysts say her hopes depend on a big victory. In response, Mr Obama said: “Using words like ‘obliterate’ – it doesn’t actually produce good results, and so I’m not interested in sabre-rattling.” He said only that Iran should know he would respond “forcefully” to an attack on any US ally. (Continue reading: BBC News)

On Eve of Primary, Clinton Ad Invokes bin Laden

The six-week Pennsylvania primary drew to a contentious finish Monday as Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton invoked images of Pearl Harbor and Osama bin Laden in a television advertisement that questioned Senator Barack Obama’s ability to lead in a crisis.

 

As she sought to spark a comeback in the Democratic nominating contest, Mrs. Clinton warned voters not to “take a leap of faith or have any guesswork” when they cast ballots Tuesday.

The Obama campaign accused her of employing “the politics of fear.”

With 158 pledged delegates at stake in Pennsylvania, the largest state remaining on the party’s primary calendar, the candidates raced from Scranton to Pittsburgh to Philadelphia — and a smattering of suburbs along the way — to rally their supporters and win over a dwindling lot of undecided voters.

While Mr. Obama spent nearly twice as much on television advertising in the state as Mrs. Clinton in the final days of the race, she broadcast a new commercial that used historic images from critical moments in the country’s past to ask voters whom they could trust in the White House. It did not mention Mr. Obama, but closed with “Who do you think has what it takes?”

(Continue reading: New York Times)