THE LIBYA SCAM
Glenn Greenwald has another masterful column taking us inside the phony euphoria of corporate media about the “liberating” of Libya. “First, I’m genuinely astounded at the pervasive willingness to view what has happened in Libya as some sort of grand triumph even though virtually none of the information needed to make that assessment is known yet, including: how many civilians have died, how much more bloodshed will there be, what will be needed to stabilize that country and, most of all, what type of regime will replace Gadaffi?”
Indeed, the true reasons for the NATO attack appear to be coming out in foreign news, such as this British report “Dash for profit in post-war Libya carve-up.”
Gaddafi, demonized in our mass media and government since the NATO bombing of Libya began, was like so many dictators, a client of the Empire as recently as last year. “Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) promised to help former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi obtain U.S. military hardware as one of the United States’ partners in the war on terror, according to a U.S. diplomatic cable released Wednesday by anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks,” begins a piece at Raw Story this morning. And this was bipartisan, as the 2000 Democratic Vice Presidential candidate, Joe Lieberman, accompanied McCain last year on a trip to Libya where “Lieberman called Libya an important ally in the war on terrorism, noting that common enemies sometimes make better friends.”
KUCINICH CALLS FOR RESIGNATION OF WHITE HOUSE JOBS CZAR
Congressman Dennis Kucinich has called for the resignation of White House jobs czar Jeffrey Immelt, and urged the White House to fire him if he doesn’t step down. “Jeffrey Immelt has a conflict of interest,” Kucinich said in a statement. “He cannot ethically advise the president on how to create American jobs and promote American competitiveness, while at the same time leading a company that is exporting American technology and, along with it, American jobs.”
True, but President Obama needs the General Electric money for his reelection campaign. Does anybody doubt why Immelt got the job? How could anybody on the planet believe Immelt cares if Americans have jobs? These questions don’t get asked in our hopelessly corrupt mass media, and any reporter knows they’d lose their job just by asking them.
When GE can make more profit by hiring people they will do it, meanwhile they will grab every dime they can from the treasury while paying no taxes themselves and offshoring American jobs as fast as they can make a dime in profit from it.
Dean Baker goes entirely against the conventional wisdom in this piece, saying we will not likely go into a double dip recession. Instead, we will likely have continued high unemployment, but as someone loses a job another will be created, keeping us from sinking further into economic misery for the 75% working class and the 15% poor. At the top, the middle class, professionals and business people, are holding their own and the wealthy above them are greatly expanding their wealth at the expense of those at the bottom.
Of course, the problem for many is that capitalism always creates unemployment with which to push down wages so that the ruling Forces of Greed may grab much more than the peasants, living as they do off the sweat of those who work for a living. The official unemployment numbers are a lie at 9%, not including several categories of unemployed, and under-employed, but despite all the talk of jobs, Baker says the number will not likely go down. —Jack
