November 07, 2013
Grave Robbers
Just 24 percent of registered voters cast ballots
in the election, meaning that de Blasio’s “landslide,” breathlessly
proclaimed by the media, consisted of the votes of just 16 percent of
those registered and a considerably slimmer margin when compared with
the city’s entire voting age population.
Millions of working people in New York City, as throughout the US, are bitterly disillusioned with, if not actively hostile toward, both major political parties. This is the result in large measure of the experience of nearly five years of the Obama administration, which came into office with promises of “hope” and “change you can believe in.”
Instead, at home the administration executed the multi-trillion-dollar bailout of Wall Street together with deepening unemployment and austerity for the working class. The jobless Obama “recovery” has delivered 93 percent of income growth to the top one percent, while the vast majority has suffered a continuing decline in living standards. Meanwhile, it has vastly escalated domestic and worldwide spying, while conducting criminal operations abroad from drone assassinations to wars of aggression in Libya and Syria.
While de Blasio sought to tap into resentments over social inequality, the overriding fact of American social life, those who are suffering its effects had every reason to mistrust his “tale of two cities” rhetoric.
De Blasio is a Democratic Party hack, a functionary in the Clinton administration who went on to manage the successful campaign of Hillary Clinton for the US Senate in New York and to seek several minor city offices as rungs in the ladder of his political career.
No sooner than he had won the Democratic primary in September, de Blasio executed a familiar pivot, pitching his candidacy now not to the working class and poor of New York, but to the financial predators of Wall Street. In the end he took in more than three times as much in campaign cash and enjoyed considerably more support from the big banks and finance houses than Lhota, a former investment banker who campaigned against de Blasio’s call for an insignificant rise in city taxes on New York’s richest. De Blasio hobnobbed with and got money from the executives of Goldman Sachs and the top hedge funds as well as others who deserve to be in prison for their actions that provoked the financial meltdown of 2008.
Within this socioeconomic milieu, there were calculations that putting a Democrat who postures as a populist into Gracie Mansion would have definite political uses, particularly under conditions in which the city is projecting a $2 billion budget deficit, even as it faces contract negotiations with unions representing some 300,000 municipal workers, most of whom have been without new agreements for more than four years. De Blasio, no doubt the thinking went, would be better positioned to pitch “equal sacrifice” than Lhota.
As these reactionary and cynical political machinations become ever more exposed before the population, one political layer feels an urgent need to breathe new life into rapidly disintegrating illusions in the Democratic Party and liberalism. Thus, pseudo-left organizations that orbit the Democratic Party and the trade union apparatus dedicated themselves during this year’s election to lending a phony left gloss to de Blasio and the bourgeois electoral process as a whole.
In the case of the New York mayoral election, the International Socialist Organization celebrated de Blasio’s victory in the Democratic mayoral primary, proclaiming him “a dramatic improvement from past Democratic mayoral candidates.” Vastly exaggerating popular illusions in de Blasio, the ISO counseled its own members and other pseudo-left elements that “our role should not be to dash these hopes (as if we could) but to try to channel them into a grassroots movement for change.” Instead of campaigning for de Blasio, it urged “activists” to “demand that he campaign for us.”
Everything here is designed to funnel discontent back into the safe channel of Democratic Party politics and head off a break with the capitalist two-party system by the working class.
Similarly, in Minneapolis and Seattle, the Socialist Alternative group ran candidates for City Council based on minimal municipal reform programs and appeals to both sections of the Democratic Party establishment and the trade union bureaucracy.
These efforts are tailored at obscuring the essential reality of political life in the United State: that the domination of society and monopolization of wealth by a tiny oligarchy precludes any genuine democracy. The politics of the ruling establishment as a whole, including its so-called liberal representatives, are dedicated to defending the dominance of this social layer and suppressing any genuine opposition from below. The pseudo-left, with its continuous promotion of various forms of identity politics, is dedicated to obscuring the fundamental conflict between the working class and this ruling layer. Reflecting the social interests of a privileged layer of the middle class, it is determined to divert and quash this struggle.
As with Obama in 2008, events will soon expose the class content of de Blasio’s politics. The yawning social divide in New York City, and throughout the country, is not sustainable. It must give rise to an eruption of class struggle. When that happens the true character of the two big business parties and all of its politicians—as well their petty-bourgeois pseudo-left adjuncts—will become clear to millions.
Millions of working people in New York City, as throughout the US, are bitterly disillusioned with, if not actively hostile toward, both major political parties. This is the result in large measure of the experience of nearly five years of the Obama administration, which came into office with promises of “hope” and “change you can believe in.”
Instead, at home the administration executed the multi-trillion-dollar bailout of Wall Street together with deepening unemployment and austerity for the working class. The jobless Obama “recovery” has delivered 93 percent of income growth to the top one percent, while the vast majority has suffered a continuing decline in living standards. Meanwhile, it has vastly escalated domestic and worldwide spying, while conducting criminal operations abroad from drone assassinations to wars of aggression in Libya and Syria.
While de Blasio sought to tap into resentments over social inequality, the overriding fact of American social life, those who are suffering its effects had every reason to mistrust his “tale of two cities” rhetoric.
De Blasio is a Democratic Party hack, a functionary in the Clinton administration who went on to manage the successful campaign of Hillary Clinton for the US Senate in New York and to seek several minor city offices as rungs in the ladder of his political career.
No sooner than he had won the Democratic primary in September, de Blasio executed a familiar pivot, pitching his candidacy now not to the working class and poor of New York, but to the financial predators of Wall Street. In the end he took in more than three times as much in campaign cash and enjoyed considerably more support from the big banks and finance houses than Lhota, a former investment banker who campaigned against de Blasio’s call for an insignificant rise in city taxes on New York’s richest. De Blasio hobnobbed with and got money from the executives of Goldman Sachs and the top hedge funds as well as others who deserve to be in prison for their actions that provoked the financial meltdown of 2008.
Within this socioeconomic milieu, there were calculations that putting a Democrat who postures as a populist into Gracie Mansion would have definite political uses, particularly under conditions in which the city is projecting a $2 billion budget deficit, even as it faces contract negotiations with unions representing some 300,000 municipal workers, most of whom have been without new agreements for more than four years. De Blasio, no doubt the thinking went, would be better positioned to pitch “equal sacrifice” than Lhota.
As these reactionary and cynical political machinations become ever more exposed before the population, one political layer feels an urgent need to breathe new life into rapidly disintegrating illusions in the Democratic Party and liberalism. Thus, pseudo-left organizations that orbit the Democratic Party and the trade union apparatus dedicated themselves during this year’s election to lending a phony left gloss to de Blasio and the bourgeois electoral process as a whole.
In the case of the New York mayoral election, the International Socialist Organization celebrated de Blasio’s victory in the Democratic mayoral primary, proclaiming him “a dramatic improvement from past Democratic mayoral candidates.” Vastly exaggerating popular illusions in de Blasio, the ISO counseled its own members and other pseudo-left elements that “our role should not be to dash these hopes (as if we could) but to try to channel them into a grassroots movement for change.” Instead of campaigning for de Blasio, it urged “activists” to “demand that he campaign for us.”
Everything here is designed to funnel discontent back into the safe channel of Democratic Party politics and head off a break with the capitalist two-party system by the working class.
Similarly, in Minneapolis and Seattle, the Socialist Alternative group ran candidates for City Council based on minimal municipal reform programs and appeals to both sections of the Democratic Party establishment and the trade union bureaucracy.
These efforts are tailored at obscuring the essential reality of political life in the United State: that the domination of society and monopolization of wealth by a tiny oligarchy precludes any genuine democracy. The politics of the ruling establishment as a whole, including its so-called liberal representatives, are dedicated to defending the dominance of this social layer and suppressing any genuine opposition from below. The pseudo-left, with its continuous promotion of various forms of identity politics, is dedicated to obscuring the fundamental conflict between the working class and this ruling layer. Reflecting the social interests of a privileged layer of the middle class, it is determined to divert and quash this struggle.
As with Obama in 2008, events will soon expose the class content of de Blasio’s politics. The yawning social divide in New York City, and throughout the country, is not sustainable. It must give rise to an eruption of class struggle. When that happens the true character of the two big business parties and all of its politicians—as well their petty-bourgeois pseudo-left adjuncts—will become clear to millions.
>>read entire story >>The Democratic Victory in New York & Crisis Liberalism, Bill Van Auken, Global Research<<here
Whitewashing Crime in Israel
By Stephen Lendman
 |
| Ghoul, too |
Israeli injustice is longstanding. It’s systemic.
Avigdor Lieberman’s acquittal on serious charges is the latest example.
Imagine. Palestinian children accused of stone throwing are detained, isolated, interrogated, intimidated, terrorized, fined and at times imprisoned. It’s standard practice whether or not they did anything.
Lieberman reflects the worst of Israeli politics. He’s a former nightclub bouncer. He’s an ultranationalist extremist. He represents Israel’s lunatic fringe. He’s a latter day Kahanist. In 1988, Israel outlawed his Kach party. It was called a “threat to national security.”
Lieberman founded and leads the hard right Yisrael Beiteinu party. He was a Netanyahu coalition partner. He’s Knesset member. He’s morally, ethically and legally challenged.
He was foreign minister and deputy prime minister. Serious charges forced his resignation. Acquittal lets him return.
He’s a serial felon. He deserves prison, not high office. A decade earlier plea bargain avoided harsh punishment.
He assaulted a young boy. He copped a plea, paid a small fine, and got off virtually scot-free.
Clear evidence showed he’s guilty of bribery, embezzlement, money laundering, obstruction of justice, and breach of trust.
In mid-December, Israeli Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein dropped major charges. Fraud and breach of trust remained.
They related to former Belarus ambassador, Ze’ev Ben Aryeh. Documents show Lieberman secured his appointment in return for services rendered. He promoted his ambassadorship to Latvia. Bribery was involved.
He denied guilt. He lied. He’s a serial liar. Conviction would have forced his Knesset resignation.
Prison for three months or longer prohibits a former MK from seeking a Knesset seat for seven years after completing his or her sentence.
Haaretz once called Lieberman the “reigning champion of extrication from possible criminal indictment.”
He’s got much to answer for. He was confident of acquittal. He was right. Israeli justice is virtually none at all.
In August 2009, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was indicted in three corruption cases. They related to Rishon Tours as well as the Talansky and Investment Center affairs.
On January 5, 2012, he and 17 others were indicted for allegedly giving or receiving bribes related to various real estate deals.
He was charged with taking amounts worth 1.5 million NISs (Israeli New Shekels).
The so-called Holyland case made headlines. It’s a Jerusalem luxury housing project. Olmert was city mayor at the time. Later he was Israel Land Administration minister.
Haaretz called Holyland “an extravagant memorial to municipal corruption, riches to entrepreneurs, fringe benefits to elected officials, and kickbacks to go-betweens.”
It reflected business as usual for crooked profiteers and complicit politicians. Bribes, kickbacks and cronyism persist. Olmert was up to his ears in it.
He was implicated in earlier financial crimes. In 1988, he was involved in forging Likud party campaign donation receipts. Others were convicted. He got off scot-free.
He lives a charmed life. In July, he was acquitted of Rishon Tours and Talansky charges. He was convicted only of breach of trust in the Investment Center case.
Observers called the case one of Israel’s most significant corruption trials. Olmert accused of double-billing $92,000.
His Rishon Tours account held funds in that amount stolen from public organizations. He allegedly used them for private travel for himself and family members.
He built a relationship with Rishon Tours owner Emanuel Baumelshpiner. Charges alleged he ordered his agency to transfer funds from other customer accounts without their authorization or knowledge.
In the Talansky affair, he was charged with receiving $600,000 from US businessman Morris Talansky from 1993 – 2005.
Allegedly he helped him with various business deals. He claimed the funds were for political, not personal, use.
The court held that despite evidence of conflict of interest, none proved he used his office for criminal wrongdoing.
Prosecutors failed to prove charges beyond a reasonable doubt, it said. Olmert escaped conviction.
Charges relating to failure to disclose US businessman Joe Almaliah’s donations to Israel’s state comptroller as well as misleading him about their source didn’t stick.
Olmert was convicted of one minor breach of trust charge. It hardly mattered. It was for failing to disqualify himself from oversight from various transactions.
He still faces Holyland charges. As explained above, they relate to accepting bribes as Jerusalem mayor to facilitate construction.
Talansky charges forced his resignation as prime minister. He was pronounced politically dead. It remains to be seen. If he dodges another bullet, perhaps he’ll return.
He deserves prison, not exoneration. Some observers and members of his own party believe he’s guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
It doesn’t matter. He’s free. Who said crime doesn’t pay? In high places, it sure does.
On November 6, Haaretz headlined “Lieberman acquittal paves way for return to Foreign Ministry.”
Guilt didn’t matter. He was acquitted of fraud and breach of trust.
“The judges wrote that in purely legal terms, they believed Lieberman acted improperly by failing to inform the Foreign Ministry’s appointments committee of his past dealing with Ben Aryeh,” said Haaretz.
“However, they added the accused was not
aware of the seriousness of the circumstances and his appointment of Ben
Aryeh was not a promotion.”
In other words, Israel’s State Prosecutor’s Office failed to prove criminal wrongdoing. The court accepted Lieberman’s defense. It did so despite damning evidence of guilt.
It said it’s “true the defendant behaved inappropriately. But as (former High Court President) Justice (Aharon) Barak wrote in the case against (former Prime Minister’s Office director Shimon) Shelves:
[SIDEBAR: The US-ZioCons own the 'digital computer electronic MONY units' and this incredible criminally insane ideology is what we get. What is IT that we get? Whatever the owners of the DCEMUs decides for ALL as THEIR 'REALITY/IES'. We know the realities in the Apartheid and Genocide global forever and ever. We get what (1) we pray for and (2) deserve? Wake from the nightmare, Article I, Section IX, Clause VII, U.S. Constitution.]
Until Article I, Section IX, Clause VII, U.S. Constitution gets to be for the AMERICAN 'Human People', There is ONLY "Whistling Past The Graveyard" while the GHOULS eat the souls of our 'realities'
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