Mn-prog-events Mailing List: Progressive Calendar 07.27.05

[David Shove (shove001]

             P R O G R E S S I V E   C A L E N D A R     07.27.05

1. Eagan peace vigil   7.28 4:30pm
2. Small is beautiful  7.28 5pm
3. Palestine video     7.28 7pm

4. Breakfast/Schiff    7.29 7:30am
5. Bridges to Hmong    7.29 10am
6. Counter recruitment 7.29 11am
7. Palestine vigil     7.29 4:15pm
8. Peace in Nepal      7.29 7pm

9. Joshua Frank   - Hillary Clinton: outflanking Bush from the right
10. David Sirota  - Dems in 2008: sell out & lose, or stand up & win
11. PC Roberts    - The US Navy...made in China
12. Mike Whitney  - Doomsday approaches: the end of the housing bubble
13. Lewis Carroll - I'll tell thee everything I can  (poem)

--------1 of 13--------

From: Greg and Sue Skog <skograce [at] mtn.org>
Subject: Eagan peace vigil 7.28 4:30pm

CANDLELIGHT PEACE VIGIL EVERY THURSDAY from 4:30-5:30pm on the Northwest
corner of Pilot Knob Road and Yankee Doodle Road in Eagan. We have signs
and candles. Say "NO to war!" The weekly vigil is sponsored by: Friends
south of the river speaking out against war.


--------2 of 13--------

From: Jesse Mortenson <jmortenson [at] Macalester.edu>
Subject: Small is beautiful 7.28 5pm

7.28 5pm
Cahoots coffeehouse
Selby 1/2 block east of Snelling in StPaul

Limit bigboxes, chain stores, TIF, corporate welfare, billboards; promote
small business and co-ops, local production & self-sufficiency.


--------3 of 13--------

From: tracymolm <tracy0581 [at] redconcepts.net>
Subject: Palestine video 7.28 7pm

Palestine Video Night
Thursday July 28 @ 7pm (potluck dinner at 6:30) @ Mayday Books, 301
Cedar Ave S, Mpls.

Join us for an evening of education and discussion. We will be showing a
bunch of short films produced by groups in Palestine, mainly from the
Balata Refugee Camp Collective.


--------4 of 13--------

From: "Schuchman, Noah D" <Noah.Schuchman [at] ci.minneapolis.mn.us>
Subject: Breakfast/Schiff 7.29 7:30am

Please join Gary Schiff, 9th Ward Minneapolis City Council Member, for
Breakfast with Gary on Friday, July 29th, 2005!

This month, welcome Becca Vargo-Daggett from the Institute for Local
Self-Reliance and Catherine Settanni from Digital Access.  Becca and
Catherine will discuss their visions and advocacy for a high-speed,
wireless Internet network in the City of Minneapolis.  Cities around the
nation have begun implementing Wi-Fi networks and the City of Minneapolis
is currently reviewing proposals for our own.

Friday, July 29 - 7:30 to 9am.
Café of the Americas - 3019 Minnehaha Avenue South


--------5 of 13--------

From: humanrts
Subject: Bridges to Hmong 7.29 10am

July 29 - Building Bridges: Learning About the Hmong.  Time: 10:00-1:00
pm.  Cost: $10, advanced registration and payment required.

Workshops are July 29th and August 26th.  Comprehensive Workshops for
Service Providers, Employers and Community Members interesting in learning
more about the Hmong refugees from Wat Tham Krabok, Hmong-Minnesotans and
the culture and background of the Hmong people. Presentations by Txongpao
Lee and Mark E. Pfeifer of Hmong Cultural Center.

The workshop fee is $10 per person. Advanced registration and payment is
required. To register for the workshops, please contact the Hmong Cultural
Center. The Building Bridges Race Relations Outreach Program is made
possible through support from the Saint Paul Foundation and Otto Bremer
Foundation.

Location: Hmong Cultural Center, 995 University Avenue, Suite 214, Saint
Paul, MN 55104


--------6 of 13--------

From: sarah standefer <scsrn [at] yahoo.com>
Subject: Counter recruitment 7.29 11am

"Our Children Are Not Cannon Fodder"
CounterRecruitment Demonstration
Fridays   11-12 noon
Recruitment Office in Stadium Village at the U of M.
1/2 block east of Oak St on Washington Ave.
for info call Barbara Mishler 612-871-7871


--------7 of 13--------

From: peace 2u <tkanous [at] hotmail.com>
Subject: Palestine vigil 7.29 4:15pm

Every Friday
Vigil to End the Occupation of Palestine

4:15 pm - 5:15 pm
Summit & Snelling, St. Paul

There are now millions of Palestinians who are refugees due to Israel's
refusal to recognize their right under international law to return to
their own homes since 1948.


--------8 of 13--------

From: "Krista Menzel (Merriam Park Neighbors for Peace)" <web [at] mppeace.org>
Subject: Peace in Nepal 7.29 7pm

An Evening with Dr. Durga Pokhrel:
Agent for Peace in Nepal

Dessert Potluck
Friday July 29
7-9pm

StJohn the Evangelist Episcopalian Church
60 North Kent Street, St. Paul
(1 block north of Summit Avenue and 1 block east of Dale Street)

Nepal is a country tipping toward civil war. A country of contradictions,
its breathtaking beauty is set against a backdrop of deep poverty and
political, social, and gender injustice. Situated between India and China,
Nepal is a strategic and geographic pearl for big players in the
geo-political arena, not least of which is the United States.

In the 1970's and 1980's, Dr. Durga Pokhrel was part of the underground
democratic movement that led to a tenuous democracy in Nepal in the
1990's. In the 1970's and 1980's she was a journalist and a university
lecturer until she was arrested and detained in medieval-like prisons.
Beaten and tortured like many of the other women prisoners, she came to
the attention of Amnesty International, which adopted her as a prisoner of
conscience. Freed from prison, death threats followed her, and she
eventually fled to the United States, where she earned an advanced degree
at Kennedy School of Government. She married Andrew Willett and had three
sons. After 16 years in the United States, Dr. Pokhrel and her family
returned to Nepal, where she became the Director of Nepal's newly-formed
Commission on Women. Since then she has worked bravely, tirelessly, and
passionately for peace and women's rights in Nepal.

Nepal's democracy was suspended by the King last winter, and there is a
Maoist rebellion underway. Many of Nepal's politicians and government
ministers were placed under house arrest, and the current situation there
is very tense and unstable. Dr. Pokhrel has been a key force for peaceful
mediation, maintaining trust and contact with both rebels and officials of
Nepal's government. Her visits to rebels in the countryside and in jail
reveal that as many as 40-50% of the Maoist militia are women. Dr.
Pokhrel brings us an unparalleled opportunity to meet with a peacemaker
and women's rights advocate at the eye of a very current political
hurricane.

Sponsored by Merriam Park Neighbors for Peace, Crocus Hill/West 7th
Neighbors for Peace, and the Nepal Social Service Fund. For more
information, contact Halle at hallelujahhuzzah [at] aol.com or (651) 291-8502,
or Krista at web [at] mppeace.org or (651) 641-7592.


--------9 of 13--------

The Mrs. Thatcher of the Democrats
Hillary Clinton: Outflanking Bush from the Right
By JOSHUA FRANK
CounterPunch
July 26, 2005

Senator Hillary Clinton, a likely 2008 presidential candidate, called for
a "cease fire" within the Democratic Party as she accepted a leadership
post with the Democratic Leadership Council on July 25.

The DLC was greatly responsible for her husband's rise to power in the
early 1990s, and Hillary's new position within the right-wing organization
is a sure sign the New York Senator wants to see the Democrats move
further right. Hillary is apparently attempting to build a conservative
base for a potential presidential bid in 2008.

During the Senator's speech at the annual DLC convention in Columbus,
Ohio, she promised to help resurrect the non-existent Democratic dexterity
of the 1990s. "[The Republicans] turned our bridge to the 21st century
into a tunnel back to the 19th century," said Clinton. "The clear mission
of a unified Democratic Party is to back us out of that Republican tunnel,
fill it in, go back across the bridge, and get America back in the
business of building dreams again."

It shouldn't come as a surprise that Sen. Clinton is attempting to shed
her centrist cloak - as she still believes a right-wing Democratic Party
is a winning Democratic Party. In the last few months, Hilary has teamed
up with notorious right-wingers such as former House speaker Newt Gingrich
and Senate majority leader Bill Frist to push faux health-related
legislation, as well as condemn the marketing of violent and sex filled
video games to American children. But bombing kids in Iraq and elsewhere
doesn't seem to bother her much. She's also called for more troops in Iraq
and Afghanistan.

"Now, I know the DLC has taken some shots from some within our party and
that it has returned fire too," Clinton told the convention's attendees.
"Well, I think it's high time for a cease-fire, time for all Democrats to
work together based on the fundamental values we all share."

Give me a break. The DLC has been the crusher of progressive politics for
years. They labeled Dennis Kucinich's campaign unworthy of recognition,
and derailed Howard Dean's "anti-war" campaign by consistently attacking
his band of followers - calling instead for a robust foreign policy akin
to the neo-con's vision of Empire.

Hillary's ascendance into the DLC leadership position is a obvious sign of
the Democrat's inability to learn from their mistakes. As if John Kerry
lost in 2004 because he was too far to the left. Right. Kerry attempted to
out-hawk Bush on Iraq, and failed. He could not oppose Bush's assault on
civil liberties, the economy - and only rhetorically opposed Bush's
assault on the environment (remember how he met with labor leader Hoffa to
chat about a oil conduit from Alaska to the continental US ... oh yeah, he
failed to vote against Bush's forest plan and opposed Kyoto too).

The Democrats, by and large, just don't get it. They think their party can
be reformed from within. They contend that the victories of Barak Obama
and Howard Dean are signs of change, when in fact they are nothing more
than signs of weakness.

Hillary Clinton has already intimated through her top aides that she will
be supporting Bush's pro-corporate anti-choice justice to the Supreme
Court, John Roberts.

"In my dream, our faith in God and our shared values give us the strength
to conquer our fears of one another and the unknown," exclaimed Sen.
Clinton to the DLC. President Bush would be proud.

At least there is one Democrat out there worth listening to, Montana
Governor Brian Schweitzer. And although he is no progressive, Schweitzer's
take on Washington politics is spot-on, "If I stay in Washington for more
than 72 hours I have to bathe myself in the same stuff I use when my dog
gets into a fight with a skunk."

Joshua Frank is the author of the brand new book, Left Out!: How Liberals
Helped Reelect George W. Bush, which has just been published by Common
Courage Press. You can order a copy at a discounted rate at
www.brickburner.org. Joshua can be reached at Joshua [at] brickburner.org.


--------10 of 13--------

Published on Wednesday, July 27, 2005 by The Huffington Post
The Democrats 2008 Choice: Sell Out & Lose, Or Stand Up & Win
by David Sirota

The 2008 Democratic presidential candidates this week are busy
genuflecting at Corporate America's altar -- otherwise known as the
Democratic Leadership Council (DLC). Now, it's true -- the DLC is really
just a group of Beltway-insulated corporate-funded hacks who have spent
the better part of the last decade trying to undermine the Democratic
Party's traditional working class base -- a base that had kept Democrats
in power for 40 years and now, thanks to the DLC, has been forfeited to
the Republicans. Even so, the fact that these presidential candidates feel
the need to bow down to the DLC is a troubling sign about whether the
Democratic Party is really serious about regaining power in America.

Let's just look at the cold, hard facts about the DLC and its record. The
DLC has pushed, among other things, the war in Iraq and "free" trade
policies, using bags of corporate money to buy enough Democratic votes to
help Republicans make those policies a reality. They have chastised anyone
who has opposed those policies as either unpatriotic or anti-business --
even as a majority of Americans now oppose the war in Iraq, oppose the
DLC's business-written trade deals, and are sick of watching America's
economy sold out to the highest corporate bidder. Additionally, in
brazenly Orwellian fashion, the DLC has also called its extremist agenda
"centrist," even though polls show the American public opposes most of
their agenda, and supports much of the progressive agenda.

Now, you could make a credible argument that the DLC's
corporatization/Republicanization of the Democratic Party was justified,
had it led to electoral success for Democrats. Few would argue that
today's split-the-difference Democratic Party hasn't followed the DLC's
policy direction over the last 10 years. That means the last 10 years of
elections really have been a referendum on whether the DLC's model --
regardless of any moral judgements about it -- actually wins at the polls.

And that's when we get to the real problem with the DLC -- its policies
are BOTH morally bankrupt, and politically disastrous. The rise of the DLC
within the Democratic Party has coincided almost perfectly with the
decline of the Democratic Party's power in American politics -- a decline
that took Democrats from seemingly permanent majority status to permanent
minority status. In this last election, just think of Democrats' troubles
in Ohio as a perfect example of this. Here was a state ravaged by massive
job loss due to corporate-written "free" trade deals -- yet Democrats were
unable to capitalize on that issue and thus couldn't win the state because
the DLC had long ago made sure the party helped pass the very trade
policies (NAFTA, China PNTR) that sold out those jobs.

To counter, the DLC holds up Bill Clinton's 1992 win as proof that its
policies win elections, but that is so dishonest it's laughable. First and
foremost, almost everyone would agree Clinton ran a very un-DLC-like
populist campaign for President in 1992, and won far more on the strength
of his charisma/personality than any policy platform from a bunch of
pencil-pushing geeks at the DLC in Washington, D.C. Secondly, since that
1992 victory -- with the exception of Clinton's 1996 victory over one of
the weakest GOP challengers in modern history -- Democrats have been
roundly destroyed in national election after national election.

Thus, we are brought back to the bottom line: with the DLC, Democrats get
all of the bad policies, and none of the good electoral outcomes -- it is
the worst of both worlds.

Why is this the case? Because, above any one issue, Americans don't think
Democrats stand for anything. They hear Democrats say they stand up for
America's middle class, but then watch as the DLC loudly supports the
opposite. For instance, the DLC was one of the pioneers in pushing Social
Security privatization - a policy the DLC's Wall Street backers love (and
if you don't believe the DLC advocated this, see their position paper
trumpeting "personal accounts"). The DLC has pushed "free" trade that
sells out American jobs, which the DLC's corporate backers love. And the
DLC has pushed wars that send middle class kids off to die for lies, which
the DLC's neocon ideologues love.

The DLC attracts undue attention to itself and these awful policies by
claiming to speak for Democrats, attacking the Democratic Party, echoing
the Republican Party's agenda, and reinforcing dishonest right-wing lies
about progressives -- a surefire way to get press attention. What's left
is a widespread impression that the Democratic Party deliberately misleads
voters about its priorities, cares only about their political advancement,
and possesses absolutely no core convictions.

Thankfully, the rise of a new populism within the Democratic Party is
challenging the tired, hackneyed suits at the DLC, as is alternate
fundraising sources that allows candidates to ignore the fat cats who fund
the DLC.

But make no mistake about it -- the Democratic Party is in the throes of a
battle for its soul -- a battle that will decide whether Democrats will
ever be a majority party again.

On one side, you have the DLC which seeks to remold the Democratic Party
into a wholly-owned subsidiary of Corporate America, controlled by a tiny
cadre of conservative-leaning elitists in Washington, D.C. who are
desperate to hang onto their power over the Democratic Party apparatus in
Washington, D.C. These are the people who are so desperate and conniving,
they viciously attacked Howard Dean in 2004 and ruthlessly attack
grassroots groups like Moveon.org who, unlike the DLC, actually goes out
and does the hard work of trying to WIN election. They are also the same
people who are now working overtime to undermine Democrats' opposition to
President Bush's extremist economic agenda.

On the other side are progressives who want to see the party go back to
what made it successful for decades: a willingness to stand up for
America's middle class.

The 2008 presidential candidates would rather there not be this choice,
and that's why they are trying to have it both ways, speaking at the DLC
conferences, while reassuring progressives they are real Democrats. But
ultimately, that won't be possible. Each of them will have to make a
choice -- kiss the elitists' ring, sell out to the highest corporate
bidder, and be ridiculed on the national stage for standing for nothing
other than fat cats and political expediency. Or, actually follow the lead
of conviction politicians, ignore the D.C. cocktail party circuit, create
a principled McCain-like image, and stand up for the millions of Americans
who the DLC and the Beltway crowd have arrogantly alienated for so long.

We've tried the former for many years now, and it has meant loss after
loss after loss after loss (the repetition of this disastrous formula kind
of makes you wonder whether the current crop of Democrats actually enjoys
losing). Personally, I don't like losing and I don't like selling out, so
I'm hoping the Democrats reject the DLC model and change course. While it
might be a fine life to be a comfortable-in-the-minority elitist in the
cushy confines of Washington, D.C. where the consequences of selling out
are muted, out here in the real world, the results of Democrats' permanent
minority status in national politics have very real and very harsh effects
-- and it's time for a change.

 2005 TheHuffingtonPost.com


--------11 of 13--------


The US Navy...Made in China
China-Mart Takes Over
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
CpounterPunch
July 25, 2005

My poor beloved country, trapped in a Middle Eastern quagmire and tricked
by Osama bin Laden into subsidizing to the tune of $300 billion (spent or
appropriated) a training ground for Muslim terrorists and insurgents while
our once fabulous economy disintegrates.

If the US were still rich and just wanted to throw several hundred billion
dollars at bin Laden as a good will gesture, that would be one thing. But
we are borrowing the money that we are using to train Muslim terrorists to
kill and maim our troops in Iraq and Londoners in England.

The money is being lent to us mainly by Asians, especially the Chinese.
China has so many dollars to lend to us because we send so many dollars to
China to pay for the goods and services that patriotic American
corporations have decided to supply to us from China instead of from
America.

US corporations decided that the way to get rich was to destroy their
American consumer base by closing their American factories, throwing their
US employees out of work and hiring Chinese instead. The Chinese work for
less, you see, and free trade economists say lowering costs makes us
better off.

What US corporations and the free trade economists overlook is that giving
Americans' jobs to foreigners raises foreign incomes and lowers American
incomes. When credit cards and home equity lines are maxed out, there will
be nothing to support the US consumer market. The American corporations
who moved their capital and technology to China will have to find new
customers.

Maybe the Chinese government will let the relocated US firms sell to
Chinese customers, or maybe the Chinese government will let the US firms
go bankrupt. The latter favors China's strategic interest. Chinese
businessmen will purchase the bankrupt firms, and Chinese businesses will
sell to Chinese customers.

Americans are pouring so much money into China that China can finance our
wars while it buys up our companies.

Everyone was shocked that a Chinese company could outbid Chevron for
Unocal. China has already purchased IBM's personal computer business, and
is now after US appliance maker Maytag (whose appliances are made in
Mexico).

The outsourcing mania has hit the Pentagon, and China will soon be
supplying the ships for the US Navy. The Pentagon, seeking lowest cost, is
pushing defense contractors to outsource offshore for more materials,
components and systems.

This means the end of US shipbuilding capability. Component suppliers to
American shipbuilding are already skeletal thin, with most components only
having sole suppliers. For example, Manufacturing & Technology News (July
8) reports that 80% of the components for the Virginia Class submarine
come from sole sources.

With not enough US Navy ships being built to support even an industry of
sole suppliers, Asia is fast becoming the only source for US Navy ships.

While President Bush spends $300 billion recruiting and training
terrorists for bin Laden in Iraq, US Navy ship procurement has fallen 33%
since 2001.

Meanwhile China is on a rip. China is now the third largest shipbuilder
after South Korea and Japan. In five years China's submarine fleet will be
twice the size of America's. In 10 years China's navy will be larger than
the American fleet.

This is amazing performance for a country that as recently as 1989 had
essentially no shipbuilding industry.

This year the US is producing 6 ships, one-tenth of South Korea's output.
In 2006 the US is scheduled to produce only 4 ships, because China has
outbid us for the steel. The US "superpower" can no longer afford to
compete against China for essential materials.

Cynthia Brown, president of the American Shipbuilding Association says
that "the manufacture of entire components and systems will migrate to
China in the next several years under current Department of Defense policy
with respect to outsourcing."

But, hey, we will get ships cheaper, and it is making us rich!

Paul Craig Roberts has held a number of academic appointments and has
contributed to numerous scholarly publications. He served as Assistant
Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. His graduate
economics education was at the University of Virginia, the University of
California at Berkeley, and Oxford University. He is coauthor of The
Tyranny of Good Intentions. He can be reached at:
paulcraigroberts [at] yahoo.com


--------12 of 13--------

Doomsday Approaches
The End of the Housing Bubble
By MIKE WHITNEY
CounterPunch
July 27, 2005

I sold my home three weeks ago anticipating what I believe will be
"Economic Armageddon" in the United States. It wasn't an easy thing to do.
My wife and I have lived in the same home for 25 years, raised both of our
children there, and owned the property outright without any loans or
mortgage. The house was paid for in "sweat-equity", that is, by wielding a
shovel day-in and day-out in my one-man landscape business. I don't say
that for sympathy, but to illustrate that we played by the rules, worked
hard, paid our taxes, and took advantage of the American dream of
home-ownership.

All that has changed.

I sold my home for one reason; George W. Bush. He and his protg at the
Federal Reserve have submerged the country into a morass of
"unsustainable" debt, disrupted the nation's economic equilibrium and
thrust us towards fiscal disaster. They've also generated a humongous
housing bubble through their irresponsible and self-serving manipulation
of interest rates.

The facts are astonishing.

The current housing bubble "is larger than the global stock market bubble
in the late 1990s (an increase over five years of 80% of GDP) or America's
stock market bubble in the late 1920s (55% of GDP). In other words, it
looks like the biggest bubble in history." (The Economist)

The banks have lowered the standards for home loans to such an extent that
the traditional loan of 20% down and a fixed interest rate is virtually a
thing of the past. Instead, those conservative practices have been
replaced with "creative financing" schemes that put the entire housing
market at risk.

Consider this: In 2004 "one-fourth of all home-buyers including 42% of
first-time buyers"made no down payment". (New York Times)

No down payment?

Sorry, but if a buyer can't come up with at least $5 thousand dollars for
a down payment, he shouldn't qualify for a home loan.

Equally troubling is the fact that "nearly one third of all new mortgages
this year call for interest-only payments (in California, its almost
half)" (NY Times) This tells us that a large number of new buyers can
barely make their payments, but are gambling that their property value
will go up enough to justify their investment. This is "equity-roulette";
a shell-game that anticipates that salaries will go up while interest
rates stay low.

Is that a reasonable judgment?

No, Greenspan has said that he will continue to ratchet up interest rates
to head off inflation. This means that an economic slowdown is a near
certainty. Remember, "class-warrior" Alan Greenspan lowered the prime rate
to a ridiculously low 1% in 2002 to keep the economy humming-along while
$300 billion was sluiced into Bush's "preemptive" war in Iraq and while
the tax cuts were siphoning the last borrowed farthing out of the public
coffers. The Bush tax cuts transferred an average of $400 billion dollars
per year into the pockets of America's plutocrats. Now, the country is
flat-broke and Greenspan will have to "incrementally" raise rates to
stabilize the sagging dollar. This means a sluggish economy for most of us
and doomsday for over-extended homeowners.

Greenspan assumed he could carry out his plan without too much unnecessary
carnage. Unfortunately, gluttonous mortgage lenders have lowered long-term
loans while the prime rate continues to go up. The banks, it seems, are
addicted to the "cash cow" of shaky lending and are providing even riskier
loans to new applicants. This has upset the Fed-master's strategy for a
"soft landing" and Greenspan has begun feverishly issuing warnings about
an inevitable "adjustment" when the market bogs down. The bottom line is
that the housing bubble is getting bigger by the day and increasing the
potential for catastrophe.

The current problem is compounded by the dramatic surge of speculation in
the housing market. As "The Economist" says, "A study by the National
Association of Realtors (NAR) found that 23% of all American houses bought
in 2004 were for investment, not owner-occupation. Another 13% were bought
as second homes. Investors are prepared to buy houses they will rent out
at a loss; just because they think prices will keep rising"the very
definition of a financial bubble."

What will happen to these "speculative" buyers when the market "flattens
out" or the economy takes a sudden dip?

And, what will happen to the US economy when the jobs that depend on new
home sales vanish overnight?

"Over the past four years, consumer spending and residential construction
have together accounted for 90% of the total growth in GDP. And over
two-fifths of all private-sector jobs created since 2001 have been in
housing-related sectors, such as construction, real estate and mortgage
broking." (The Economist)

"Two out of every five" private sector jobs are now entirely dependent on
an industry that is built on pure quicksand.

So, why would banks foolishly loan money to people who can't even scrap
together a few thousand dollars for a down payment or who can scarcely
meet their "interest-only" obligations?

The reason is simple; because they are not the one's taking the risk.
Mortgage loans are acquired by investment banks and chopped up into
various securities where they are sold in mutual funds, hedge funds and
pension funds etc. To some extent, this takes the lenders off the hook,
but it also means that the shock to the system will be much more
widespread when the day of reckoning finally arrives. If we encounter a
major glitch in the economy the shock-waves will be felt throughout the
world. "Investors now hold $4.6 trillion in mortgage backed securities.
That's more than the outstanding value of the US Treasuries." (NY Times)
Think about it.

Shaky lending, interest-only loans, no down payments, a US government that
is $8 trillion in debt due to Washington's profligate spending, and a
"ticking-time bomb" of adjustable-rate mortgages that will reset within
three years; the table is set for a disaster of Biblical proportions. If
we hit a bump in the economic road ahead (rising gas prices? recession?)
the "Land of the free" will be knee-deep in bankruptcies and foreclosures.
We'll all be fighting for a soft-spot under the freeway on-ramp.

The fatuous Greenspan believes that all this can be avoided by regulating
the money supply.

He's dead wrong, and I bet my house on it.

Note: The current dilemma could have been avoided if Greenspan had
incrementally raised rates as the bubble began to appear. Instead he
lowered rates to facilitate Bush's war in Iraq. It was purely a political
decision that "postponed" the economic pain of the conflict and allowed
the Bush administration to shift the cost of the war onto future
generations.

Consider, also, how Greenspan paved the way for the budget-busting tax
cuts (which he enthusiastically approved) and how they have increased
America's debt by $3 trillion. This is real money that American workers
will eventually have to pay back in the form of taxes and a higher cost of
living. This "class loyalty" is strikingly at odds with his philosophy as
a young man when he said, "Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the
confiscation of wealth."

So it is; and the $3 trillion dollars that evaporated on Greenspan's watch
was in fact stolen from the American people while the Fed-chief concealed
the crime behind the smokescreen of low-interest rates. In the final
analysis, Greenspan will be seen as a greater traitor than Bush.

Mike Whitney lives in Washington state. He can be reached at:
fergiewhitney [at] msn.com


--------13 of 13--------

 I'LL TELL THEE EVERYTHING I CAN
 by: Lewis Carroll (1832-1898)

 I'll tell thee everything I can;
 There's little to relate,
 I saw an aged, aged man,
 A-sitting on a gate.
 "Who are you, aged man?" I said.
 "And how is it you live?"
 And his answer trickled through my head
 Like water through a sieve.

 He said, "I look for butterflies
 That sleep among the wheat;
 I make them into mutton-pies,
 And sell them in the street.
 I sell them unto men," he said,
 "Who sail on stormy seas;
 And that's the way I get my bread--
 A trifle, if you please."

 But I was thinking of a plan
 To dye one's whiskers green,
 And always use so large a fan
 That they could not be seen.
 So, having no reply to give
 To what the old man said,
 I cried, "Come, tell me how you live!"
 And thumped him on the head.

 His accents mild took up the tale;
 He said, "I go my ways,
 And when I find a mountain-rill,
 I set it in a blaze;
 And thence they make a stuff they call
 Rowland's Macassar Oil--
 Yet twopence-halfpenny is all
 They give me for my toil."

 But I was thinking of a way
 To feed one's self on batter,
 And so go on from day to day
 Getting a little fatter.
 I shook him well from side to side,
 Until his face was blue,
 "Come, tell me how you live," I cried,
 "And what it is you do!"

 He said, "I hunt for haddocks' eyes
 Among the heather bright,
 And work them into waistcoat-buttons
 In the silent night.
 And these I do not sell for gold
 Or coin of silvery shine,
 But for a copper halfpenny,
 And that will purchase nine.

 "I sometimes dig for buttered rolls,
 Or set limed twigs for crabs;
 I sometimes search the grassy knolls
 For wheels of hansom-cabs.
 And that's the way" (he gave a wink)
 "By which I get my wealth--
 And very gladly will I drink
 Your honor's noble health."

 I heard him then, for I had just
 Completed my design
 To keep the Menai bridge from rust
 By boiling it in wine.
 I thanked him much for telling me
 The way he got his wealth,
 But chiefly for his wish that he
 Might drink my noble health.

 And now, if e'er by chance I put
 My fingers into glue,
 Or madly squeeze a right-hand foot
 Into a left-hand shoe,
 Or if I drop upon my toe
 A very heavy weight,
 I weep, for it reminds me so
 Of that old man I used to know--
 Whose look was mild, whose speech was slow,
 Whose hair was whiter than the snow,
 Whose face was very like a crow,
 With eyes, like cinders, all aglow,
 Who seemed distracted with his woe,
 Who rocked his body to and fro,
 And muttered mumblingly and low,
 As if his mouth were full of dough,
 Who snorted like a buffalo--
 That summer evening long ago,
 A-sitting on a gate.

 "I'll Tell Thee Everything I Can" is reprinted from The Hunting of the
 Snark and Other Poems and Verses. Lewis Carroll. New York: Harper &
 Brothers, 1903.

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   - David Shove             shove001 [at] tc.umn.edu
   rhymes with clove         Progressive Calendar
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