LISTENING IN
by Seymour M. Hersh
Issue of 2006-05-29
Posted 2006-05-22

A few days before the start of the confirmation hearings for General Michael Hayden, who has been nominated by President Bush to be the head of the C.I.A., I spoke to an official of the National Security Agency who recently retired. The official joined the N.S.A. in the mid-nineteen-seventies, soon after contentious congressional hearings that redefined the relationship between national security and the public’s right to privacy. The hearings, which revealed that, among other abuses, the N.S.A. had illegally intercepted telegrams to and from the United States, led to the passage of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, to protect citizens from unlawful surveillance. “When I first came in, I heard from all my elders that ‘we’ll never be able to collect intelligence again,’” the former official said. “They’d whine, ‘Why do we have to report to oversight committees?’ ” But, over the next few years, he told me, the agency did find a way to operate within the law. “We built a system that protected national security and left people able to go home at night without worrying whether what they did that day was appropriate or legal.”

After the attacks of September 11, 2001, it was clear that the intelligence community needed to get more aggressive and improve its performance. The Administration, deciding on a quick fix, returned to the tactic that got intelligence agencies in trouble thirty years ago: intercepting large numbers of electronic communications made by Americans. The N.S.A.’s carefully constructed rules were set aside.

On my way to Ireland I had the misfortune of stepping into the Cibo Bistro and Wine Bar in the International terminal of Philadelphia airport. It had a kind of funky ambiance and the food looked promising. That was, until I took a more detailed glance at the menu: "Freedom Toast". What? You know, I have been living in the US since 2000 and I had heard about all this 'freedom fries' and 'freedom kissing' nonsense but I had never witnessed it with my own eyes. Ironic that while freedom fries aren't even being served on Capitol Hill anymore and that the senator who introduced the term has since decided to condemn the war, some people just don't want to quit this puerile practice. Lets just recall that the purpose of the 're-branding' of french fries in the first place was intended to evoke the idea that France was being anti-democratic by not supporting the US invasion of Iraq. However, since then even hawkish democrats like John Murtha have come to view the invasion as anything but conducive to the cause of democracy in Iraq.

Sadly, when I confronted the bar tender serving my food about this, she had nothing to say. She didn't care. As she shrugged and walked away from me, I couldn't help but think that what she was really trying to say was: 'Don't get political on me, I just work here'.

As long as their menu continues to refer to 'freedom' anything in this stupid and ridiculous manner, I will not eat there again and I encourage you not to either.

NiK

The following is my letter to the Open Republic Institute, a conservative think tank in Ireland. Their URL is here

http://www.openrepublic.org/index.html

------------------------------

Dear Messrs. Gurdgiev and MacDonnell:

I was prompted to write to you after my father, Jerry, emailed me a link to your organizations Policy Watch circular. After some examination of your website I have two points I would like to offer you (in the spirit of healthy debate):

1. Frankly, I have to say I am very disturbed by the following claim in the article 'Capitalism works. Look at Enron':

"Enron, in the end, becomes an example of what's good about the American system of capitalism. The truth came out, the guilty people paid the price and those contemplating stealing money from shareholders must now walk in fear of the courts. Transparency won the day"

Would that it were so! While I have no wish to get into an argument with you about the flaws or merits of capitalism, I think there is very little about the Enron scandal that the American judicial system can be proud about. One need only reflect on the fact that the recent incarceration of Lay and Skilling does NOTHING to compensate those who were screwed by them or their company. Moreover, the particular crimes for which they were punished were not their most egregious but, rather, the crimes for which they could be most easily prosecuted. Might I refer you to the transcript of today's edition of Democracy Now!, a radio show which broadcasts in the US, to get some nuance on the more sinister aspects of this whole affair:

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/26/1410242

If you don't want to read the whole thing, here is the most relevant excerpt - From BBC journalist Greg Palast:

"Now, you have to understand what's happening here. That means, despite the fact that this one guy is getting nailed and stands -- two guys could go up the river, for up to a century in the case of Skilling, in fact, they're not charged with their big crimes. The Bush Justice Department went way out of its way to make sure that the big crimes were not busted. After all, these guys played games with not only the books of their company, but they took down the California power market, ripped off consumers with other power companies as co-conspirators, with investment banks as co-conspirators, $9 billion. $9 billion from the consumers of California ... what they did was is they hung out Ken Lay and Skilling to dry, but the mob stays there; just like when Capone went up the river, we saw the legacy of the mob. In this case, Skilling and Lay go up the river for these technical infractions, but the power mob still stays there.

It was, you know, the Justice Department -- in fact, justice wasn't done. It wasn't even begun, because you have the situation in which, for example, the investment banks, which had to pay almost $7 billion in civil settlements, they should now be indicted. They're co-conspirators with Lay. But in fact they were let off the hook, and the law firm which brought these investment bankers to heel, the co-conspirators, made them pay the $7 billion, that law firm has now been indicted: Milberg Weiss. In other words, the Bush administration is sending out a very clear signal to big business: okay, we had to hang out -- we had to sacrifice some guy; we needed a sacrificial lamb; we gave the crowd Lay and Skilling. But big business, it's business as usual. We have nailed the law firm that went after Enron. No new indictments. The power markets remain controlled by basically a mob of power pirates, the co-conspirators to Enron. They could not have done this alone."

You don't have to be a rabid capitalism-bashing liberal to get Palast's point: Justice in this case will require far more than the throwing of Lay and Skelling in the clink. In fact, it will require nothing less than a massive and courageous investigation into widespread abuses by an array of corporations and government actors. The following article is revealing in this sense:

http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=284&row=1

2. The claim on the actual homepage for your organization about Chomsky and Herman's views on the genocide in Cambodia is in my mind very problematic. Quite aside from being utterly confused as to why you decide to put this quote as the very top item on your homepage at all (I must assume you feel that by giving such a lofty priority to this quote you are somehow making yourself attractive to a certain category of reader), I must object that I have read a lot of Chomsky and I think if whoever wrote that particular point did too then they would certainly wish to revise their view.

Chomsky is in fact very well-known for his argument that the invasion of Cambodia by Vietnam should be praised to the extent that it put the 'killing fields' there to an end (see his book, World Orders Old and New). Chomsky can be criticized for a great many things but playing down the genocide in Cambodia is not one of them. If you are looking for a source on this, you can read his own words on this controversy here:

http://www.zmag.org/forums/chomcambodforum.htm

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Nicholas Kiersey

Hey all - I have added photos from my recent trip to France with my wonderful family. You can access them by clicking on the 'My Photos' link in the navigation bar.

Cheers,

NiK

THE COMING WARS
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
What the Pentagon can now do in secret
Issue of 2005-01-24 and 31
Posted 2005-01-17

George W. Bush’s reëlection was not his only victory last fall. The President and his national-security advisers have consolidated control over the military and intelligence communities’ strategic analyses and covert operations to a degree unmatched since the rise of the post-Second World War national-security state. Bush has an aggressive and ambitious agenda for using that control—against the mullahs in Iran and against targets in the ongoing war on terrorism—during his second term. The C.I.A. will continue to be downgraded, and the agency will increasingly serve, as one government consultant with close ties to the Pentagon put it, as “facilitators” of policy emanating from President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney. This process is well under way

Everybody loves Spinoza

Atheist Jew, champion of modernism, and kind and sociable man, the 17th century lens grinder who was "drunk on God" continues to win hearts and minds with his breathtaking philosophical vision.

By Laura Miller

Bertrand Russell declared the 17th century lens grinder Baruch Spinoza to be "the noblest and most loveable of the great philosophers." To judge from several recent books, he's not alone in that opinion. The neurologist Antonio Damasio made the philosopher's thought a keystone of his 2003 book on emerging theories of emotion and consciousness, "Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow and the Feeling Brain." In "Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity," philosophy professor and novelist Rebecca Goldstein declares herself to have loved Spinoza since the first time she heard him decried in the Orthodox yeshiva high school she attended as a girl. Matthew Stewart, a management consultant turned freelance historian of philosophy, makes Spinoza the supreme champion of modernism in his tale of intellectual rivalry, "The Courtier and the Heretic: Leibniz, Spinoza and the Fate of God in the Modern World." Even Einstein, when asked if he believed in God, replied, "I believe in Spinoza's God."

A very exciting conference was held in Cambridge last week on Immaterial Labour, a central concept in the theoretical agenda of Autonomist marxism.

One of the more interesting papers was presented by Steve Wright, author of Storming Heaven (a seminal work surveying the development of Autonomist Marxism in Italy in the 70's).

You can read his paper here:

There and back again: mapping the pathways within autonomist Marxism
by Steve Wright

He notes that the term 'Autonomist Marxism' was coined by Harry Cleaver, who defined it thus:

What gives meaning to the concept of ‘autonomist Marxism’ as a particular tradition is the fact that we can identify, within the larger Marxist tradition, a variety of movements, politics and thinkers who have emphasized the autonomous power of workers – autonomous from capital, from their official organizations (e.g. the trade unions, the political parties) and, indeed, the power of particular groups of workers to act autonomously from other groups (e.g. women from men). By ‘autonomy’ I mean the ability of workers to define their own interests and to struggle for them – to go beyond mere reaction to exploitation, or to self-defined ‘leadership’ and to take the offensive in ways that shape the class struggle and define the future.

And the following quote from Sergio Bologna indicates the fractured and multiple nature of the origins of Operaismo:

I believe above all that operaismo was an exaltation – sometimes uncritical – of the working class, but also a great exaltation of power. Operaismo was born, not by chance, with Operai e capitale. It’s not clear which was greater: the paean to the working class, or that to the capitalist capacity of subsuming this working class from the point of view of its components. So it was not by chance that many of its theorists later became theorists of the State, and today are only theorists of governability. And I don’t believe that we can call the latter traitors, because this eulogy of capital’s power [potenza] is a risk within operaismo, which later became the eulogy of the power of the political as such, of the autonomy of the political. This is an extremely coherent consequence, I believe. It is not some leap, a moment of transformation: in my opinion, it is a logical consequence.

The Best Little Whorehouse in Washington
By Molly Ivins
Truthdig

Monday 08 May 2006

On other hand, if you expect me to pass up a scandal involving poker, hookers and the Watergate building with crooked defense contractors and the No. 3 guy at the CIA, named Dusty Foggo (Dusty Foggo?! Be still my heart), you expect too much. Any journalist who claims Hookergate is not a legitimate scandal is dead-has been for some time and needs to be unplugged. In addition to sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, Hookergate is rife with public-interest questions, misfeasance, malfeasance and non-feasance, and many splendid moral points for the children. Recommended for Sunday school use, grades seven and above.

Politics

The new kid in the barrio
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,329473656-102280,00.html
Sunday May 7, 2006
Observer

What does Chávez's revolution stand for? Is it Marxist or religious in its inspiration? Does it represent a new economics, as he insists, or is it dependent on the old capitalism he claims to despise? Then there is Chávez himself. Is he democratic or authoritarian? Above all, where does the rhetoric of his struggle with the US, with its threats, its risky alliances and ominous warnings of invasions and 1,000-year resistance wars, begin and end? Above all, what is real, and what theatrical performance? Certainly his left-wing credentials are not in doubt. Born in 1953 of mixed Amerindian, African and Spanish descent (his parents were schoolteachers in Sabineta), Chávez came from the group to whom he now appeals: the poor. As a boy he was sent to live with his grandmother, but it was the army - which he joined at 17 - that moulded him, giving him the education that would otherwise have been unavailable. And it was as a young officer that Chávez first developed his ideas about 'Bolívarianism' that later were forged into his Revolutionary Bolívarian Movement-200.

Neil Young's new album will appeal to his fans but also to political activists of a more populist persuasion. Eschewing the intellectual flair of more contemporary critics, who tend in one way or another to interrogate the major political issues of our time through the lens of 'spectacular' media-driven capitalism, Young resorts to the themes of social activists who railed against the elite monopolies on social power during America's 'Gilded Age'.
Songs here echo the political sentiments he has already expressed in such albums as Ragged Glory. Where such earlier work used populist tactics to address environmental degredation, here the primary topic is the 'Madison Avenue war' being waged by the pernicious Bush Administration in Afghanistan and Iraq. In voicing these concerns, Young is hardly the first major artist to come out solidly against 'war'. Steve Earl's recent anti-war album makes an equal if not more energized 'rock versus war' statement. However, where Earl's clout as an artist was insufficient to get 'on the radar' in the mainstream media, Young will undoubtedly have greater luck.
Here Young combines sometimes plaintive pleas for justice with caustic remarks on Bush's policy priorities (one highlight is Young's throwaway riff on the irony of Bush's support for controls on athletes' use of steroids only *after* he'd gotten out of the baseball business). Like Earl, he doesn't let the lyrics hold him back from delivering a very hard, gritty sound. Moreover, like Earl again, he is not afraid to give 'voice' to the experience of soldiers, missing their homes and the values it is ideally supposed to serve, or their families. Musically, the album has a gritty 'session'-like feel. Supported by a 100-strong choir, all of the songs evoke the theme of the multitude's struggle for justice. 'Let's impeach the President' really delivers in this sense. This album is medicine for the political activist, leaving one with a sense of hope that though populism we can still effect political change. 

Review by Nicholas Kiersey
Neil Young, 'Living With War'
Reprise / WEA
2006

http://www.opendemocracy.net/articles/ViewPopUpArticle.jsp?id=3&articleId=3496

But while modern liberal democracy has its roots in this particular cultural soil, the issue is whether these ideas may become detached from these particularistic origins and have a significance for people who live in non-Christian cultures. The scientific method, on which our modern technological civilisation rests, also appeared for contingent historical reasons at a certain moment in the history of early modern Europe, based on the thought of philosophers like Francis Bacon and René Descartes. But once the scientific method was invented, it became a possession for all of mankind, and was usable whether you were Asian, African, or Indian.

The question is, therefore, whether the principles of liberty and equality that we see as the foundation of liberal democracy have a similar universal significance. I believe that this is the case, and I think that there is an overall logic to historical evolution that explains why there should be increasing democracy around the world as our societies evolve. It is not a rigid form of historical determinism like Marxism, but a set of underlying forces that drive human social evolution in a way that tells us that there should be more democracy at the end of this evolutionary process than at the beginning.

SPIEGEL ONLINE - May 2, 2006, 12:17 PM
URL: http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,414036,00.html
South America's New Hero   Indian, Coca Farmer, Bolivian President By Jochen-Martin Gutsch

Is he a socialist? A revolutionary? Or at least a bit of each? Morales leaves the small makeshift stage. He has talked about the country's natural gas industry, which he wants to nationalize. It's his big plan in a country with South America's second-largest reserves. An extremely valuable natural resource lies beneath Bolivian soil, and Morales has just told his audience, as he told other audiences before, that it's a resource that has always benefited others, foreign corporations, for example, and that it must be returned to the Bolivian people.

So, whats all this May Day business about? Here are some good resources to start:

1. http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=7830

What you need to know about May Day
by Leo Panitch; May 11, 2005

Ever since, May Day and Labour Day have represented in North America the two faces of working-class political tradition, one symbolizing its revolutionary potential, the other its long search for reform and respectability. With the support of the state and business, the latter has predominated but the more radical tradition has never been entirely suppressed.

2. http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/01/1337209

The Origins of May Day: A Story of Chicago, the First Labor Movement and the Bombing That Divided Gilded Age America
Democracy Now; May 1st, 2006

It was also the period when American industrial capitalism was booming. The largest corporations in America were being created then, and yet people in the United States were thinking these were bad organizations, that they could be stopped, that somehow they could create an economy that was run by local people, run by workers themselves. The things that we think were inevitable in the 20th century didn't seem so in 1886.